I come up with crazy ideas about football all the time; either in the shower or on the toilet or in my dreams. I figure some out of the way place like the worldwide thread would be the ideal place to stash them as my ideas tend to haunt me unless I write them down.
Here is one I thought of the other day (expect more to follow in the coming weeks/months/years)
I wonder if something more like what happens in Brazil could work for Europe:
UEFA Champions League A (10 teams)
UEFA Champions League B (10 teams)
UEFA Champions League C (10 teams)
UEFA Champions League D (10 teams)
Europa League A (64 teams)
Europa League B (128 teams)
Only 3 more teams than are currently involved in European compettion.
Format: the champions league groups work like real leagues with pro/rel and league schedules (home and away with all the other teams)
I would think about having the winner of A host B for a final so that there can still be a CL final, but I am still unsure about that. I would also consider a neutral final, but I would be less for that as it does not give enough advantage to the winning team. Maybe something that if tied after extra time, the #1 team wins the tiebreak.
Bottom three teams in the CL A, B, and C automatically go down. A promotion/relegation playoff between the 7th A and 4th B, 7th B and 4th C, and 7th C and 4th D. Still not sure if this should be over 2 legs, one leg at the higher division team or 3 matches over a short period all at the same neutral location (sort of like what happens at Wembley for the promotion playoffs)
CL D automatically relegates 4 teams
Europa League A:
split into 16 groups of 4. (6 games) Top 2 teams advance to promotion phase. 3rd place teams leave competition with a spot in next seasons Europa League A. last placed teams enter relegation phase.
Promotion Phase: 8 groups of 4 teams (6 games). top 2 teams advance to last 16 knockout round. All 4 semi-finalists earn promotion. Not sure if it is worth playing the 3 extra games to determine a champion, depends on if the clubs want to play the extra games and how much money could be in winning the Europa League (difference between 16 and 19 games)
Relegation Phase: 4 groups of 4. Bottom 2 teams in each group (8 teams) are relegated to Europa League B.
Europa League B: all teams participate in 2 playoff rounds (reduces 128 to 32 over 4 games). Then 8 groups of 4 teams are formed (6 games) with the 8 group winners earning promotion to Europa League A. The bottom team in each group, plus the playoff losers are kicked out of Europe (104 teams)
Entry into Europa League B: Top 2 teams from top 51 counries that are not already in Europe. 1 team from country 52 and 53.
Some general rules on promotion: no CL division can have more than 3 teams from the same country. If there are 3 teams from England in CL A and a 4th English team earns promotion, the 4th team is only promoted if it finishes higher in the league table that season than the lowest placed English team in CL A. And in that case the lowest placed CL A English team would be relegated to CL B.
I would also want to see the return of the Cup Winner's Cup. This way it could be determined who is the best Cup team in Europe, and who is the best league team, in close to the same way that indivual countries decide. Although I would want teams competing in both if they qualified (in which case I don't think you would need a CL final). The top 9 countries plus the defending Cup Winners Cup winner get byes into the round of 32. the Bottom 44 countries play a play in round. For the big countries, it is 9 games max. But that starts to seem like too many games. But at the same time, if you actually are good enough to compete on so many fronts, you're likely to have a deep team that could also handle this many games. This would allow us to know who is the best "league" team in all of Europe, as well as the best "cup" team.