Clubs propose Champions League reforms based on coefficient ranking

Plans that would enable clubs to qualify for the Champions League based on historic performance and not their league position are back on the table, a year after the collapse of the European Super League.

Members of the European Club Association, an organisation which includes 10 Premier League sides, are to lobby Uefa to allow two teams to qualify for Europe’s elite club competition based in part on their coefficient, a metric calculated according to continental performance over the five previous seasons.

The Guardian understands that the proposals would see clubs who finish outside Champions League places in their domestic leagues, but qualify for the Europa League or win a domestic cup, compete for two places which would then be decided by coefficient ranking.

The proposals have been discussed within the Club Competitions Committee working group, which sees senior members of the ECA work on competition reforms with Uefa. They are also likely to be raised at the organisation’s General Assembly in Vienna this week.

Allowing clubs to qualify for the Champions League via club coefficient were part of original plans to expand the competition approved by Uefa last year. At the time they were seen as allowing big clubs to guarantee a place in the competition even if they failed to qualify on merit by league position.

Following the collapse of the European Super League and public concerns over preserving ‘sporting integrity’, Uefa said the reforms could be adjusted. Speaking earlier this month at the Financial Times Business of Football summit, the governing body’s president, Alexander Ceferin, said that while the means of qualification for two additional sides had not been confirmed, it would mean “more places for smaller