‘Swiss system’ madness proves UEFA’s Champions League revamp is a winner

When UEFA announced that the Champions League was expanding from 32 to 36 teams, and that the classic four-team group structure would be dismantled and replaced by something called a ‘Swiss system’ – a format first used at a chess tournament in 1895, completely untested in football – eyebrows were cynically cocked around Europe and across the world.

By killing off the group stage and replacing it with a “league stage”, was UEFA also killing their golden goose? Would these changes actually improve the Champions League, or was it just a way of getting more teams involved to generate more revenue and stave off the perennial threat of a breakaway Super League?

Did anyone at UEFA realise how silly it is to say the words “Champions League league stage” out loud?

And how on earth were fans supposed to track how their team was faring through a single 36-team ladder, when each side is only playing eight games?

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