Changes are afoot in the Champions League.
As was originally reported by Gabrielle Marcotti 11 days ago, UEFA have now confirmed a restructure of the Champions League, which will see Europe's top four leagues each receive four guaranteed entrants to the group stages - no qualifiers or playoffs necessary - from the 2018/19 season.
This means that exactly half of the teams in the Champions League will hail from just four countries, which we might point out is total bollocksology.
This will also mean that Premier League clubs' garbage performances in Europe will make no impact on England's coefficient, something which briefly worried the English football consciousness in the throes of its ineptitude last season before Manchester City and Liverpool restored some pride.
European clubs have seemingly realised UEFA's premier club competition is nothing without their involvement. The tv-rich Premier League is causing alarm among clubs across Europe, as it should be; as our own Gavin Cooney pointed out when this story first emerged, next year's ranking of the wealthiest 30 football clubs in the world will include all 20 Premier League clubs.
And so Europe's other top leagues have obviously felt the need to lay down the law to UEFA.
And let's hope it stops here, because Oliver Kay of the Times reported earlier this year that the European Clubs Association were proposing a rule where clubs would be guaranteed a position in the Champions League, regardless of domestic performance. This, of course, would be a load of nonsense.
The new format will make it extremely difficult for Irish clubs and their counterparts from Europe's smaller leagues to gatecrash the big time, which when you consider the likes of APOEL Nicosia's fairytale run in '11/12, is extremely disappointing.
The rich get richer, and so on.
More to follow.
