03 December 2023 , 09:00
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Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp could not resist a dig at Chelsea owner Todd Boehly after the latter's proposal for a Premier League 'All-Star' game.
Boehly completed his takeover of Chelsea in the summer of 2022 in a deal worth £4.25billion and would go on to oversee a major revamp of the squad and spend more than £700million on signing new players throughout three transfer windows. Within months of becoming the new Chelsea owner, Boehly outlined his belief that the Premier League was missing a trick by not having an 'All-Star' game.
The American, who is also the owner of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers, suggested the proposal at a conference in New York last year and that he believes the English top flight should follow. “People are talking about why don’t we have more money for the pyramid? MLB did their All-Star game this year," Boehly said in September 2022.
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"They made $200m from a Monday and a Tuesday, you could do a North vs South All-Star game from the Premier League to fund the pyramid very easily.” Boehly added: “Ultimately, I hope the Premier League takes a little bit of a lesson out of the American sports teams and really start to think about why don’t we do a tournament with the bottom four teams."
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These comments were put to Klopp, who has previously spoken against the increasing amount of games facing teams and players. The Liverpool manager was asked about Boehly's comments after a win over Ajax in the Champions League last year and made it clear that he was not a fan of the idea.
“He [Boehly] doesn’t wait long," Klopp told reporters in September last year. "Great. When he finds a date for that, he can call me. Does he want to bring the Harlem Globetrotters as well and let them play against a football team?"
The 2024/25 season is set to have an increase in the amount of games for teams that qualify for the Champions League. The new format will see the number of teams increase from 32 to 36, and feature one league table as opposed to eight groups. As a result, each team competing in the tournament will play eight 'group' games across the first half of the season, which is an increase from the six that are currently played. The group stages will also run into January due to the added number of games.
To progress to the knockout stages, the top eight teams will qualify automatically. After that, the teams positioned 9-24 in the final table will compete in a play-off to secure their spot in the next round, which will also add to the number of games for a team to play across a season.