Why decision on big Champions League reforms was postponed
The Athletic FC Podcast
The Athletic
4.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2021
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Host Mark Chapman is joined by The Athletic's football news reporter Matt Slater to bring you the latest developments in the battle between UEFA and Europe’s top clubs over UEFA Champions League reform as proposals are thrown into doubt over a commercial rights disagreement.
Ronan Evain, Executive Director of Football Supporters Europe joins the podcast to bring a fans point of view on the reforms and his fears for football as a spectacle .
And we hear Matt’s interview with Damian Willoughby, Chief Executive Officer of City Football Group India about their plans to grow their brand in the region following success on the field with Mumbai City - winners of the Indian Super League.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The Athletic. |
| 0:08.3 | Hello, I'm Mark Chapman. |
| 0:09.8 | Welcome to the Business of Sport podcast on The Athletic. |
| 0:12.6 | As usual, Matt Slater is alongside us, football news reporter at The Athletic. |
| 0:17.9 | Coming up, we'll talk about plans for Champions League reform, |
| 0:21.8 | which have been thrown into doubt over a commercial rights route. |
| 0:25.5 | So we'll look at the battle between Europe's top clubs and UEFA, |
| 0:29.0 | examining why there is a rift and what reform would actually involve. |
| 0:32.6 | We'll also hear Matt's interview with Damien Willoughby, |
| 0:35.2 | he's chief executive officer of City Football Group, India, |
| 0:38.6 | about their plans to grow their brand in the region following success on the field with Mumbai City, |
| 0:44.8 | winners of the Indian Super League. |
| 0:47.1 | This is the business of sport from the Athletic. |
| 0:51.7 | Let's get straight to it then, Matt, because on Tuesday you broke the exclusive that a decision on the revamp of the Champions League format had been delayed. |
| 1:00.3 | We record this podcast on a Wednesday morning. |
| 1:03.9 | So it's sort of 10 past 10. |
| 1:05.6 | Tell us how things stand at the moment because they could change by the time this is released. |
| 1:09.6 | I mean, I hope not, but possibly. |
| 1:11.4 | The key choreography of this week is on Monday, the European Club Association, which is the successor |
| 1:19.8 | organisation of the G14 that people might remember. They really were the rich club, |
| 1:24.8 | aristocrat gang that made life quite difficult for the way for a 10, 15 |
| 1:29.2 | years ago and got an awful lot of concessions from them, i.e. the way the Champions League looks now, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Athletic, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Athletic and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.