Louis van Gaal has attacked UEFA’s redesigned Champions League, arguing that the competition has moved too far towards volume and revenue at the expense of sporting standards.
The former Barcelona manager, now 75, delivered the criticism during an appearance on the television programme Nos, calling the expanded format “ridiculous” and accusing European football’s governing body of prioritising money. Van Gaal has recently also blamed Manchester City and what he described as their 114 “tricks” for his suffering.
UEFA enlarged the Champions League from 32 to 36 clubs and replaced the traditional group stage with a single league-phase system. For Van Gaal, the consequence is that too many teams are admitted to a tournament whose name should carry a stricter meaning.
“It is called the Champions League, isn’t it?” he said. “The best teams should be playing.” Van Gaal believes a more selective field would reduce the gap between opponents, produce fewer one-sided scorelines and create matches of a higher technical level.
He proposed a performance-based structure comparable to ice hockey, with an A League, B League and further divisions beneath them. Although UEFA already operates the Europa League and Conference League, Van Gaal said the governing body uses those competitions as cover rather than addressing the quality of the Champions League itself.
The Dutchman, who had two spells in charge of Barcelona between 1997 and 2000 and again in 2002-03, also linked the new league phase to the growing physical burden on players. More fixtures, he argued, mean more injuries across a European calendar that is already heavily compressed.
Van Gaal said UEFA should choose quality over quantity, insisting that a narrower elite competition would make European nights more competitive and more compelling while reducing injury risks. He added that he made the same case to UEFA two decades ago, but feels his warnings were ignored.
