..It was a good Tournament a decade or so ago but UEFA (European govening body) have managed to turn it to a laughing stock of a compation now. You can qualify by league places, winning a cup, being a runner up in a cup if your the beaten finalist and the winning team has already got a european spot through the league. Confused??? Well there's more!!! There's the Fairplay league (which Fulham had a chance of qualifying by). The league with the best disaplinary record are awarded an extra spot for the fairest team in there league... again the top teams in this have already qualified so it goes down to the highest rank team yet to have a european space which was City in 5th or 6th spot in the fairplay table. Don't worry there are Still more ways to get in if you've not made it yet!!! You can enter the Intertoto cup...This is a pre-season European playoff style Tournament where the winning teams from the 2 sections get a place in the qualifying rounds of the UEFA cup. Then there's the old failsafe...How Rangers got in. If your originally in the Champions League but are not good enough to fininsh in the top two spots of your 4 team league...don't worry the 3rd place team drops into the UEFA cup at about the 3rd round stage!!!!
Basically the UEFA cup has been ****ED up by the FOOLS at UEFA. They should make qualifying for via league places or Cup Winners only. It should be the Cup style Tournamnet of Europe with no Seedings and a straight knockout format from the beggining with no teams dropping into it from the Champions league...This way it may become a half decent prize that doesn't play about 5th fiddle to the champions league.
RANT OVER!!!
