Champions League could take place on Saturday

UEFA wants to hold knockout matches on some Saturday nights, in order to maximise television revenue.

UEFA will reform the Champions League in the coming time. Accordingly, the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga and Serie A are all guaranteed to have four representatives to qualify directly for the group stage from the 2018-2019 season. Those are the clubs that finish the national championship season in the top four.

“But UEFA's next big change is likely to be a threat to the tradition of domestic football in England.Premier League clubs are concerned that there will be Champions League matches played on Saturday nights,” the British newspaper Sports Mail reported on October 7.

Rescheduling matches from the knockout stages is part of a Champions League reform plan that UEFA is studying and will carry out soon.

Previously, UEFA moved the Champions League final from Wednesday night to a Saturday night in May since 2010, also to better exploit revenue from television audiences.

However, plans to play more Champions League knockout matches across some weekends are expected to face strong opposition from the Premier League, especially if it disrupts the traditional domestic fixture schedule at the end of the season.

“It’s a matter of the sort we’ve never even considered,” a Premier League source told the Sports Mail.

The Premier League will be heavily affected by UEFA's reform plans, as viewers will have more quality options to watch live TV of Champions League knockout matches taking place on Saturday.

But Scottish Premiership chief executive Neil Doncaster called it a “way forward” for talks on Champions League reform from the 2021-24 season.

Barcelona, ​​Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Juventus are also said to be in favour of plans to change the dates of the knockout stages of Europe's most prestigious tournament, so the opposition from English clubs may be in vain.

According to VNE