UEFA facing legal threat over new Champions League format

Chilean sports consultant Leandro Shara has threatened to sue European football’s governing body UEFA for the “unauthorised and unfair use” of the “league phase” format it is introducing for its three club competitions this season.

Often called the “Swiss model”, as it is loosely based on a format used in large chess tournaments, the new format will see the competitors in each UEFA competition ranked in three 36-team leagues but only have to play eight games against eight different rivals, four home, four away.

Because of its complexity, each teams’ eight opponents will be decided by computer, instead of being picked out of glass bowls, at the draw in Monaco on Thursday and Friday, with the teams in each competition split into four seeded pots of nine clubs. Each team will play two opponents from each pot, with the actual fixtures being announced on Saturday.

The format replaces the group stages that have been a feature of the Champions League since they were introduced in 1991, the year before the European Cup, a straight knockout competition, was rebranded.

It is not, however, a true “Swiss” format as that involves redrawing the fixtures after each round of matches — pitting winners against winners, with the overall victor being the competitor with highest aggregate score — as that would be impossible for a cross-border football competition with a global TV audience.

That is where Shara’s complaint comes in, as he claims he invented the hybrid system UEFA has chosen and says it should really be called the “Leandro Shara System”, a format he copyrighted in Chile in 2006, or more simply the “pots” format.

He also alleges that he “presented the format to UEFA over a dozen times since 2013”, giving European football’s governing body “case studies” and “documents”, as well as discussing the idea at several sports conferences and working with the football authorities in Chile and Peru on competitions that have used the format.

These claims, and several others, are contained a cease-and-desist notice Shara sent to UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin, secretary general Theodore Theodoridis and six other senior members of staff on Monday.

In the notice, which The Athletic has seen, Shara demands that UEFA “indicates at the draw and all upcoming publications” that it is his format, invites him and three colleagues from his MatchVision company to attend the draw and lets him speak to the media, tells its member associations and commercial partners that they must respect MatchVision’s ownership of the format and, finally, enters into a commercial agreement with MatchVision for the format’s use before the league phases start next month.

Shara has given UEFA until Wednesday, August 28th, to comply with his demands, warning them that if it fails to “perform the above actions a lawsuit may be commenced against UEFA and the competitions may be jeopardised in one or more countries where UEFA members associations reside”.

A UEFA spokesperson said: “The claims made by MatchVision are baseless at best, and are just another entry on a list of similar actions. UEFA will defend its position, though it is hardly worth the effort.”

(Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

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