HibeeJibee Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 UEFA are set to announce a new International League of Nations, commencing in 2019. It will use dates previously set aside for friendlies. Countries will be split into 4 levels of 14. (Presumably each split into 2 groups of 7 or something? Maybe just playing home-or-away?). Semi-Finals & Final at the end of each edition... promotion/relegation between levels. WC & Euros qualifying slots currently decided via play-offs would be transferred to the League. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/26747394 Not a fan of this myself. I'm not against new competitions/formats but this seems a bizarre concept. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FraserHFC Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 I actually think it sounds quite interesting. Would need to hear more details about it as that article doesn't really provide much but unless they come up with a really ridiculous way of dishing out the qualifying spots it can't be that bad a thing can it? Anything that replaces friendlies has to be a good thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted March 26, 2014 Author Share Posted March 26, 2014 Surely it's bad for us - how often will we reach the top division? If I'm understanding it correctly, take the World Cup for example, only the group winners of the actual World Cup qualifying would qualify. What are currently available as 4 play-off spots would then go to the 4 best "League of Nations" finishers? I'm not adverse to the idea of a league, but giving it slots while retaining seperate qualifying competitions too seems odd. Format-wise, is it perhaps something like this: Jun 2018 - World Cup Russia Sep-Oct-Nov 2018 Mar-Jun 2019 = Euro 2020 qualifiers Sep-Oct-Nov 2019 Mar 2020 = League of Nations Jun 2020 = Euros If it means literally 1 competition "per calendar year" that doesn't add-up, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hampden Diehard Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 Forgive me for being cynical, but will this be just another competition for TV; part of the tug-of-war for fitba dominance between UEFA and FIFA? I've stood / sat through innumerable pish Scotland friendlies, but I can see why they have some merit for managers who want to try out new players without taking a wee risk in competitive matches. Plus, it looks like something designed to have the "top" teams play against each other in an endless loop. Just like the Champions League in fact............... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FraserHFC Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 Surely it's bad for us - how often will we reach the top division? If I'm understanding it correctly, take the World Cup for example, only the group winners of the actual World Cup qualifying would qualify. What are currently distributed as 4 play-off spots would then go to the "League of Nations"? Outside the 9 or 10 teams I'd say most nations probably go through spells of being good and bad. I'm sure the Smith/McLeish team would have made it into the top division for instance. The only downside I could really see to this is that it would remove our best chance of qualifying for the World Cup through the actual qualifying group. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7-2 Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 More empire building. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
invergowrie arab Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 whit? Would i be right in thinking that for example france portugal italy england bosnia scotland iceland and serbia all finish second in the qualifying group that the first 4 all qualify by dint of being the highest in the world league even if france lost every game that year and were bottom of league 1 and iceland won every game finishing top of league 2? Is this just another way of ensuring the top seeds qualify and we dont go through the trauma of a france, italy or netherlands not qualifying again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 I'm cautiously positive about this because I'd rather have some form of competitive football than friendlies. There's also the chance to win some sort of trophy, even if it's the Nations League 2nd tier Division B final or whatever it's called. It'll all depend on the format though - it's hard to work out exactly how this could be used to help with qualification for major tournaments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted March 26, 2014 Author Share Posted March 26, 2014 I see the Telegraph is reporting slightly different details regarding this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/england/10722834/England-ready-to-play-in-new-Nations-League-as-revolutionary-Uefa-plan-earns-unanimous-backing.html They say 3 divisions of 16... no idea what happens to the remaing 6-8 nations!!... played in a Champions League format of 4 groups of 4, followed by the Semi-Finals and Final which would be played in June 2019, 2021 and so on. (Not sure what happens if a Semi-Finalist playing at the Confederations Cup). They also seem to imply it would be mixed-up among World Cup and Euro qualifer dates. And that for the Euros, winners of lower divisions could qualify for the finals. That's completely nuts (like giving the winners of lower club divisions European slots) - you're better being a "big fish" in a lower division than vice versa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forameus Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 Why do they have to take what could be a pretty good idea and then ruin it by adding all these odd stipulations? Now i Know at the moment that it's paper talk, and nothing has been confirmed, but even mentioning that these tournaments have any bearing over the actual qualifying for tournaments is ridiculous. The idea itself is good - anything to make friendlies mean something, and increase interest is a good thing, But it should just be a tournament for pride, there is absolutely no way that it should matter at all to the competitive matches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bully Wee Villa Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 Like many others on here, I like the concept, but think it should have nothing to do with World Cup/Euro Qualification. I'd like to see a format roughly as follows... LEAGUE OF NATIONS PREMIER DIVISION. Four groups of four, playing each team home and away. Play-offs: Group Winners drawn (randomly) to play at home to Group Runners-Up. Winners progress to the Semi-Finals, which are held over two legs. Final held over one leg at a neutral venue. Teams finishing third in the Group don't have any play-off matches. Teams finishing bottom in the Group play-off over two legs with the two losers relegated to Division One. DIVISION ONE. Basically the same format as the Premier Division but with both the Finalists gaining promotion to Premier Division. The two bottom-place play-off losers are relegated to Division Two. DIVISION TWO. Again, basically the same with the two Finalists promoted to Division One and the two bottom-place losers relegated to the Developing Nations Division. DEVELOPING NATIONS DVISION. One group of six teams, playing each team once. In the first edition, the three highest-ranked teams would have the advantage of playing three home and two away games. The three lowest-ranked would play two at home and three away. From the second edition onwards, the team with the disadvantage of playing an extra away game would be those who finished in the bottom three in the previous tournament. The Group Winners would progress automatically to the Final. The Group Runners-Up would play-off at home to the Group Third Place-finishing team for the other Final place. Both Finalists would be promoted to Division Two. As there is likely to be very little interest among neutrals, this Final would be held over two legs, rather than at a neutral venue. Based on the most-recent UEFA rankings I could find, here is what the initial groups might look like... PREMIER DIVISION GROUP A Italy England Bosnia and Herzegovina Switzerland GROUP B Spain Russia Croatia Sweden GROUP C Netherlands Greece Ukraine Denmark GROUP D Germany Portugal France Belgium DIVISION ONE GROUP A Hungary Norway Austria Montenegro GROUP B Czech Republic Israel Poland Finland GROUP C Serbia Slovenia Romania Scotland GROUP D Ireland Turkey Slovakia Armenia DIVISION TWO GROUP A Latvia Albania Macedonia Kazakhstan GROUP B Bulgaria Iceland Moldova Georgia GROUP C Estonia Belarus Lithuania Luxembourg GROUP D Wales Northern Ireland Azerbaijan Cyprus DEVELOPING NATIONS DIVISION (teams with a * after them play three home and two away matches, the others play two home and three away) Liechtenstein* Faroe Islands* Malta* Andorra San Marino Gibraltar Typically tough Group for Scotland, but interesting. I could honestly imagine Scotland finishing top or bottom of that so at least it would be likely to be a competitive format with few meaningless matches towards the end of the campaign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 Another advantage of this is that it seems like the sort of thing that will have the usual foaming at the mouth types raging without really knowing why they're raging. UEFA MONEY BAD AMF PLATINI TV SCUM BLATTER DIVING TV TECHNOLOGY RAGING Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinkinFighter Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 #AMF #Nandos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikingTON Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 The last League of Nations was such a roaring success, I can see why they chose it again. Another exercise in pointlessness from the token dross level that is international football - it's thankfully coming to the point in the near future where major European clubs will boot international tournament organisers in the stones and end this nonsense. Scrap international football; it's fucking shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qos_75 Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 Scrap international football; it's fucking shit. Equally, if that was the criteria used to determine suitability there would only be about four or five club teams left across the globe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~~~ Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 Wish they would keep it simple. the only change they should remove is the seeding system in qualifiers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunning1874 Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 I think it'll be great for the real diddy teams who are used to getting pumped all the time in qualifiers, The chance to play against other sides of their stature on a regular basis will at least provide some competitive games that the likes of San Marino, Malta and Northern Ireland can go into hoping to take something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stumigoo Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 Apart from the Marvel superhero secret society type cool name it sounds shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pandarilla Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 The last League of Nations was such a roaring success, I can see why they chose it again. Another exercise in pointlessness from the token dross level that is international football - it's thankfully coming to the point in the near future where major European clubs will boot international tournament organisers in the stones and end this nonsense. Scrap international football; it's fucking shit. I blame the Manchurians! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisGRAEME Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 Be astonished if this every actually goes ahead, sounds like UEFA sabre rattling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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