Platini's drastic Champions League plan takes shape

New UEFA president Michel Platini has proposed a radical overhaul of the way clubs qualify for European Champions League. AP

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The draw for the group stage of the Champions League takes place on Thursday in Monte Carlo as the movers and shakers of European soccer congregate for their annual get-together, organized by governing body UEFA.

The location is entirely appropriate. The tax haven of Monaco is a magnet for the continent's rich, a millionaires' playground where every other shop is a designer boutique or luxury-car showroom.

So it's fitting that, every year, UEFA is happy for its flagship competition to be launched amid such ostentatious displays of wealth.

Only the World Cup generates greater riches than the Champions League. Last season, UEFA handed out a total of $790 million in appearance fees and prize money to the 32 clubs who participated in the group stages.

Winner AC Milan received the most ($54 million) while Bulgaria's Levski Sofia collected the least ($7.5 million).

Each of the 32 teams received the same amount for taking part ($4 million) but a complicated formula based on the value of the respective TV markets ensured that teams from the wealthy western European leagues once again received the lion's share of the cash.

Every year, it's harder for teams from central and eastern Europe to compete with teams from the big four leagues (England, Germany, Italy and Spain). Of those leading teams, only Werder Bremen and Hamburg ($25 million and $19.5 million, respectively) received less than $27 million. In contrast, the biggest-earning eastern European club was Steaua Bucharest, with $11.3 million.

This year's draw may well include some surprise qualifiers, but none will be expected to progress to the later stages of the competition. Last year, a record six teams from eastern Europe -- Levski Sofia, Spartak Moscow, Shakhtar Donetsk, Dynamo Kiev, Steaua Bucharest and CSKA Moscow -- qualified for the group stage, yet none reached the knockout rounds.

The growing gap between rich and poor was a central theme of Michel Platini's campaign to get elected as UEFA president last year. Platini unseated incumbent president Lennart Johansson thanks to a combination of youthful campaigning (he was 52 to Johansson's 78) and a pledge to redistribute Champions League places away from the big western European nations and toward countries from eastern, central and Scandinavian Europe.

The move was clever piece of electioneering by Platini. Wealth from the Champions League may be concentrated in the hands of a few western European clubs, but in UEFA, power is equally distributed among the 52 member nations, each of whom had a vote in the presidential contest. A majority (28, mostly from central and eastern Europe) voted for Platini.

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