Liverpool’s Alisson slams UEFA’s new CL format
Liverpool are back in the Champions League after being absent from Europe’s elite club competition for a year and will be among the top contenders to lift the trophy at the Allianz Arena in May next year. If they do so, Arne Slot’s men will become the first side to clinch the trophy in the new format of the competition, which is set to take place this season onwards.
The most noteworthy change is that there will be a league table comprising 36 teams, as opposed to eight groups of four clubs earlier on. Each Champions League participant will also play eight matches in the primary phase of the competition, two more than the six outings which were customary before.
Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker has commented on the new format of the European Cup and appeared to criticise UEFA for not factoring in players’ workloads when adopting a newer format. Fabrizio Romano quoted the Brazilian saying:
“For the supporters, amazing. But sometimes nobody asks the players what they think about adding more games. Maybe our opinion doesn’t matter at all.”
Alisson is not the first player to be a vocal critic of the crammed fixture list with Manchester City trio Bernardo Silva, Kevin De Bruyne and Manuel Akanji also questioning UEFA during the Nations League earlier this month.
It comes as no surprise that there is widespread outrage regarding the thick and fast matches, which are already proving detrimental to the players with there being more serious injuries in recent years than even before. That has still not stopped the governing bodies from organising even more games going forward.
The players are certainly not taken into consideration as UEFA’s or FIFA’s boardrooms do not seem to have any representation from members who have been involved in an on-field capacity before. Aleksander Ceferin, UEFA’s president is a lawyer by trade, while Gianni Infantino, the FIFA lead, has also not enjoyed a professional career as a player.
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Thus, it comes as no surprise that those within the higher echelons of these organisations are seeing revenue as the be all and end all of sport. It will be interesting to see for how much longer the players continue to bend their backs on a harsh calendar of matches but it would not be a surprise if some reactive measures from clubs start to take place some time down the line.
