Chapter 34 Champions League

In the UEFA Champions League, no player will participate in this event and eventually win the championship as the ultimate goal of their career. The best clubs in Europe gathered together to determine the king of Europe through repeated battles. Every minute and every second on the field is particularly touching.

After the end of World War II, football has fully revived around the world. However, there are few exchanges between national teams and club-level events. At this time, the Frenchman Gabriel Arno put forward the idea of creating the European Club Cup.

Ano is the founder of the European Footballer of the selection event and writes for the French Team News and French Football magazine. He is keenly aware of the possibility of a brand-new event that can bring top clubs from European countries together.

He proposed that famous clubs from various countries create a new tournament with the league system. The promoters of the European Club Cup actively contacted FIFA and UEFA, but the results were disappointing. Both organizations were not very interested in non-national teams. But Arno's plan was warmly welcomed by several clubs such as Real Madrid, Anderlecht, *Fast and the Hungarian Football Association.

Zhao Yakde, the head of its editorial department, was entrusted by Team News. Risvik organized a meeting attended by representatives of major European clubs at that time to determine the format of the competition between European clubs.

Although UEFA reaffirmed that it would not cooperate with non-national teams in the games at the Executive Committee meeting, it still could not prevent the associations from sending representatives to Paris.

At this historic meeting, the clubs reached an agreement on the competition system: the competition is attended by national league champions; the home and away knockout system is adopted. If the points and goal difference between the two teams are the same, a play-off will be held on a third-party court; the final of the Champions Cup must be on the court predetermined by UEFA. During the team's game, ticket revenue, advertising fees and TV broadcasting fees are handled by the host.

At this meeting, an executive committee was also established. Santiago Bernabeu, the chairman of Real Madrid, served as the first vice chairman of the committee. The committee was responsible for drafting the main points for the preparation of the European Club Cup and informed the FIFA for understanding.

The idea of UEFA is to organize another cup to replace the European Club Cup proposed by the Team News and most European clubs. The participants of this cup are not clubs, but cities, in order to close friendly ties and sports exchanges between European cities.

However, the development of the situation has changed FIFA's view of the European Club Cup. They see that the game is indeed the same, and the level of participating teams is also higher.

On the other hand, after the first televised and success of the World Cup held in Switzerland in 1954, European television agencies increased the possibility of supporting the European Club Champions League, which means expanding influence and making money.

UEFA began to reconsider its attitude towards the European Club Cup. They proposed to the organizers of the Cup that the right to organize the match should be handed over to UEFA, and the club team's participation in the competition must be approved by the national association.

After the conditions were accepted, the UEFA Executive Committee held a meeting in Paris on May 21, 1955 and decided that the UEFA would personally organize the event and name the event the European Football Club Champions League without using the original name "European Cup".

Before the 1991/1992 season, the Champions League was a pure knockout. This season, the group stage was set up in the top eight. In the 1992/1993 season, the Champions League was officially renamed the UEFA Champions League, and the game also developed into every Tuesday and Wednesday.

In the following years, the competition system of the Champions League has changed repeatedly, and the group round robin system has been gradually applied to the matches before the rematch. The participating teams are no longer limited to the league champions of various countries and the Champions League champions last season, and the league runners-up of some football powers can also participate. And all these changes are to increase the number of games so that the participating teams can get more benefits.

In 1998, in order to prevent major clubs from establishing the idea of the European Super League, UEFA decided to carry out the largest reform in history of the three European Cups from the 1999/2000 season, and the European Cup Winners' Cup was cancelled.

According to the ranking of European club competition results, countries can send 1 to 4 teams to participate in the UEFA Champions League. Another round of group matches has been added. The first stage of the group stage is divided into 8 groups of 4 teams in each group, with each team playing 6 games.

The top two of the 8 groups entered the second stage of the group stage, and the third place entered the third round of the UEFA Cup. In the second stage of the group stage, the top 8 were decided to advance to the knockout stage.

In the 2003/2004 season, the UEFA Champions League cancelled the second stage of the group stage, that is, after the last 16, the knockout stage began until the championship was decided.

While winning great honors, participating in the European Cup also means that you will get huge profits. This is more real, money! No one likes it!

The 2005/2006 UEFA Champions League has not yet started, and UEFA has counted the upcoming gains of this season's Champions League and the European Super Cup, which will historically reach 1.3 billion euros.

75% of the proceeds come from UEFA's media broadcasting rights and commercial contracts, which can reach a maximum of 500 million euros, and this bonus will be distributed to various clubs.

At the same time, the remaining 25% will be used as a reserve fund for the development of European football, while ensuring UEFA and administrative expenses, including fixed funds paid by UEFA to member countries' associations, clubs and leagues.

82% of the bonus exceeding 500 million will be distributed to clubs, and the other 18% will be used for European football development and the UEFA mentioned above.

The income in the play-off stage alone will reach 55 million euros. 20 participating teams will receive a fixed prize of 2.1 million euros. After deducting the bonuses that need to be allocated to participating teams in the play-off stage, the revenue of the Champions League and the European Super Cup is expected to reach 1.2 billion euros.

The revenue of the participating teams will be mainly divided into two parts, of which 500 million euros are fixed income, and the other 400 million euros will adopt a flexible mechanism. The market share will be distributed according to different proportions of the market share of the football association to which the participating clubs belong.

All 32 teams participating in the UEFA Champions League group stage this season have received a prize of at least 8.6 million euros. The winner received a prize of more than 30 million euros, which did not include market share distribution.

In the group stage, 32 teams will receive a basic prize of 8.6 million euros. According to the performance of the game, 1 million euros for a win and 500,000 euros for a draw.

Teams that advance to the top 16 are expected to receive 3.5 million euros, 3.9 million euros in the quarter-finals and 4.9 million euros in the semi-finals. The winner won 100.5 million euros and the runner-up won 6.5 million euros.

As the domestic league champion, if he fails to advance to the group stage of the UEFA Champions League, he will get 200,000 euros. In addition, if the team participating in the first round of qualifiers fails to advance to the group stage, it will receive 150,000 euros. At the same time, teams that participate in the second round of qualifiers and cannot enter the group stage will receive 175,000 euros. The team eliminated in the third round of qualifiers will receive 200,000 euros.

This huge profit is enough to stimulate all European teams to go crazy about the UEFA Champions League, which is why in his previous life, when the Italian phone time was exposed, Berlusconi did not hesitate to pull down and threaten the Italian Football Association, if he could not ensure that AC Milan could participate in 2006/200 In the 7th season of the Champions League, his media group will not broadcast the Italian Serie A.

In the final analysis, it is still a matter of interests.

Digan likes money, but he doesn't care much about it. He is eager to participate in the Champions League and just wants to prove himself on a bigger stage and let everyone know that he is the best one on the court.

However, Ancelotti will not satisfy Degan's yearning for the Champions League. On the day before the start of the game, when the next day's list was announced as usual, Degan was still excluded.

The goalkeeper is still Dida. His performance this season is very steady. The right-back is Cafu. After taking a break from the last game, the game will return to the starting lineup. The central defender is Nesta and Maldini. Stam's poor performance in the last game made him lose his starting position. The left back is Karaze, Ancelotti's conservative problem has committed again. Instead of choosing Serginho, who performed well against Siena in the last game, he chose the more prominent defensive ability, but the Georgians in poor state, from which it can be seen that Ancelotti's rotation remarks are simply farting. In the field position, Gattuso returned to the starting lineup, and his partners were Pirlo and Ambrosini. In the sudden position, Ancelotti chose Kaka. Shevchenko on the forward line was a well-deserved main force, but his partner was beyond everyone's expectations. The previous game did not get a minute. Vieri actually entered the starting lineup.

Not to mention Degan, even when Vieri heard that he had entered the starting lineup, he was slightly stunned. He didn't get a minute to play in the league before, but now he's going to play the Champions League, and he actually started?

Can't good steel be used on the blade?

Vieri thought shamelessly, and then it was even more shameful**!