Fulham, Bolton, Middlesbrough or even Charlton in the UEFA Champions League? Well, if the proposed Premier League play-off idea had been in place over the last decade, we might have seen such a dream become a reality!
The idea was that those finishing between fourth and seventh should meet in end-of-season play-offs, with the victor handed the final English Champions League place currently secured by grabbing fourth.
The Premier League board voted against the plan with West Ham chairman David Gold admitting there’s simply not space in the football calendar.
Unsurprisingly, managers at Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal weren’t in favour of the proposal (Wenger and Benitez were especially jittery) whilst bosses of teams currently just outside the ‘big four’ were more open to it; Aston Villa’s Martin O’Neill believed it was something ‘people might go for’.
You bet they would! I think it’s an idea would help share the wealth and bring a genuinely exciting end to the season for more teams, as seen in the successful Football League promotion play-offs year-on-year.
You can’t really argue that we should ‘protect’ the quality of the Champions League either. Although it may have originally been established for title winners, its format now shoehorns in all the big teams from Europe’s best leagues; it’s not only for true champions. Liverpool, for instance, has tasted glory in Europe without really getting near to winning the Premier League.
Play-offs are prevalent in American sports and pretty ruthless too, with league winners decided not by how they fare over several months but ultimately by their form in an end-of-season knockout cup.
Rugby union in England followed suit eight years ago, introducing a similar system for its top four. ‘Winning’ the Guinness Premiership at the season’s end doesn’t necessarily mean a trophy. In fact, only two teams (Sale Sharks and Leicester Tigers) have followed up being top during the regular season by going on to triumph the play-offs.
For now, the Premier League play-offs plan looks dead in the water. Those hoping for Birmingham City versus Barcelona will have to keep dreaming.
This article first appeared in The Baptist Times, 11 March 2010
(Photo credit: Music0man)
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