FIFA president Sepp Blatter opposes the creation of the new Europa League to replace the existing UEFA Cup competition.

While UEFA organisers claim the re-branding of the UEFA Cup is all about helping the competition to move out from the shadow of the UEFA Champions League, Blatter believes that the Europa League has been created as part of a move towards closed regional leagues.

“Now you have two European leagues,” was quoted as saying in the Associated Press. “It is to open the door finally then to what one day will be, I suppose, closed leagues, and this would be detrimental to football.”

Blatter is wary of attempts to set up regional leagues as opposed to regional knockout cup tournaments, as he believes these are continuation of a decades old plan to set up closed regional leagues featuring the top clubs in Europe.

“There was once the G14 and at that time the objective was a European league. This European league is still somewhere in the heads of big clubs, definitely,” Blatter said.

Changes to be incorporated into the new Europa League include an extended group stage, which will significantly increase the resources clubs will need to invest in the tournament if they wish to be competitive.