The Athletic. The Athletic. Hello I'm Mark Chapman welcome to the Business of Sport

Podcast on the Athletic much later with us as usual coming up today we're going to

talk in the main about a piece that matters written about reports that

UAFA are thinking about scrapping the two-legged Champions League semifinals that we're

all enjoying at the moment. We'll touch on on Russia as well and we'll touch on Chelsea a little bit later, but these

rumors about UEFA's plans are what's going to dominate the pod and if I was being cynical, which regular listeners might think I am I may suggest this is all about money

of course it's all about money so we talk about in this podcast. It's what makes the world go round.

Yeah, let's do you remember 2020, the pandemic and all that?

Yeah, they did a final eight tournament. I think I'd almost forgotten that.

Yeah, when they, when they stalled the season, and they restarted, and they had both European club

competitions to finish, and they finished the Europa League in Germany, and they finished the Europa League in Germany and they finished the

Champions League in Portugal and they did it basically over about 12 13 days I

think it was and they squeezed four quarters, two semis and a final in.

Single ties, not the usual two leg thing.

And look, we're all watching at home we'd all been

deprived of football for a while and it went quite well the games were good no

fans in the in the stadiums the players liked it the club club seemed to like it, the broadcasters were happy,

it went well, and it got people thinking, well, hold on a minute, should we try and create

maybe not a final late, that would be too many clubs, too many know that not enough hotel beds and all that

but how about a final four because then we could create an event we could make it a

week-long festival and we've had all this sort of idea of

opening ceremonies and squeezing in concerts and other events right in the same

...