Juventus chief calls for Champions League transfer bans & fan subscriptions
By Tom Gott
Juventus chief Andrea Agnelli has been throwing out plenty of wild suggestions for rule changes, including banning Champions League sides from doing business with one another and charging fans to watch certain sections of matches.
Agnelli, who is also the chairman of the European Clubs Association, recently revealed that the Champions League is soon set to be expanded to 36 teams in one long league format, with UEFA coefficients deciding fixtures instead.
It's a change which has split fans across the globe, but if you thought that was a weird suggestion, you'll love some of the other ideas Agnelli has come up with.
First up, we'll start with Agnelli's proposal to ban teams competing in the Champions League from making transfers between each other, in an attempt to encourage big teams to focus on developing 'smaller' players instead.
“No triple-figures transfers between Champions League participating clubs maybe would [mean] focusing instead on champion players in smaller countries allowing us only to buy players there,” Agnelli said (via The Guardian). “These are elements we are discussing but certainly cost control will be one of the biggest challenges in terms of reforms going forward.”
Bad. That's a bad idea.
Killing the transfer market wouldn't be much fun, but at least you can see Agnelli's thought process behind it. It would stop superteams from forming and instead force teams to take the Bayern Munich route of developing younger talents and complimenting them with senior stars.
However, his idea of asking fans to pay for the final 15 minutes of matches doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
We could imagine a subscription for the last 15 minutes of a specific game,” he said. “The attention span of today’s kids and tomorrow’s spenders is completely different to the one I had when I was their age.
“If you take golf, if it’s interesting at all, it’s only the last six holes on the final day. You are not going to watch the whole thing on the TV unless you are a hardcore fan.”
So, you're asking football fans who don't particularly care about the sport to pay extra money to follow something you're well aware they don't really like instead of watching free highlights? Yeah, sounds like a great plan.