The European Champions League has a new format

The Group Stage is expanding from 32 to 36 teams, and instead of eight round-robin groups of four teams apiece, there will be one table, with each team playing four home games and four away games, each of which will be against a different team. So, each team in the group stage will now face eight teams instead of three, and the total number of matches for each club will jump from six to eight.

Qualification is of course going to be different as well; the top eight teams in the 36-team table will go right to the Round of 16, the bottom 12 will be eliminated from all European competition, and the remaining 16 will have to face each other in a play-off round. That's one of the most interesting wrinkles of this format; much like what currently exists in the Europa League, the winners in that round will move on to the knockout stages, while the losers are done- no more drop-down to a lower competition.

From that point, after play-off winners are determined, it's the same as the current format. Two-legged knockout ties in the Round of 16, quarterfinal, and semifinal rounds, before a single-legged neutral-site final.

This format will of course provide plenty of excitement with more total games and more unique matchups, but its implementation is not without controversy. Europe's top clubs already struggle with fixture crunch during certain times of the season, such as the "festive fixture" period around Christmas and often towards the end of the year as well. Adding more games to the format will only exacerbate that particular issue.

So who is set to benefit from this change? Naturally, UEFA, club owners, and television networks will be big winners. More games means more money. But in terms of actual gameplay, each team will be affected differently. 

Of course, the four teams who make group stage under this format that would have previously missed out are beneficiaries. The other type of team that will be happy are the ones on the other end of the spectrum, the top-tier and wealthiest clubs- the ones that can afford enough roster depth to rotate lineups and survive lots of fixtures in a short period of time. Manchester City immediately comes to mind, as do teams like PSG and Bayern Munich, who can often rest players domestically in order to prioritize European play.

The new format is sure to deliver a great fan experience, but so did the old one. It's hard not to wonder whether the additional strain on clubs and players is worth changing something that was already generally working extremely well.