Quote Originally Posted by Doc Sark View Post
So you'd see the Champions of Malta play rather than the Russian runners-up, a move which would reduce the quality of opposi<b></b>tion in the competition. Lets not forget it was CSKA Moscow's great performance winning the 2005 UEFA cup which has helped the Russian league gain deserved recognition and a couple of extra coefficient points to bolster their collective Champions League ambitions.
I fully admit we would not find the champions of Malta as exciting to watch as most of the teams that made the group stages under the current system but frankly many Maltese people would. And don't forget the results prior to CSKA's European glory Doc,
Lokomotiv 3-0 Inter
Spartak 4-1 Arsenal
surely you wouldn't need to see such a team to go as much as winning a cup just to realise they should be given a fairer chance

That logic is so flawed. The amount of professional teams in England is more than the amount of professional teams in Albania, and the quality of English sides is far better. By your logic the fact that England has more teams than Albania, it makes "reasonable sense" that England have more teams in the Champions League than Albania
I understand the contradiction in my statement. But I'm not sure that still makes the current scheme of things totally justifiable. A better solution to this problem would be to allocate every country one spot. Again if you will allow me to refer back to the World Cup, I for one would find it rather unjust to allow any top seeded country (eg Italy) the chance to enter two or three squads (say Italy A, Italy B, and Italy C) to qualify for the finals which is again by the very same logic

Yes, but they don't upset the odds regularly enough to justify say Slavia Prague's entry in the competition over say, Liverpool's. You want the best teams on the continent competing for arguably the biggest accolade in club football, not the fricking Faroe Islands champions, just because they won their league but would probably get turned over by a Leyton Orient under-18's squad. People get far too caught up in the name of the competition, which in the context of the spectacle, is wholly irrelevant. The Champions League is designed to bring the best clubs in Europe together and see who wins. These smaller footballing nations have their chance in the Intertoto and UEFA Cups, and only the Russians and the Turks have really made any impact from Eastern Europe in recent years, by winning the competitions, and that is reflected in the fact they have extra qualifying places in the Champions League now, compared to when it started.
I am not asking for the champions of the Faroe Islands to be put into the main draw. If that was the case the group stages would take eternity to complete. There certainly has to be some sort of qualification programme (like most other tournaments) in order to determine those who should be obliged to enter the latter stages. A mere suggestion would be to gradually (I realise an abrupt change of things would make a joke of a reformation) revert back to the mid-90's system (4 groups of four clubs) where only the best 16 would be able to compete in the group stages, besides managers moan about the number of games they are due to play anyway. Having said that, I still stand by my statement that the way Arsenal and Liverpool have been far from the likes of champions. There is no doubt smaller clubs would relish the opportunity of playing in such a competition possibly even more so than the regular visitors