Asian clubs set to join Europa League

Posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 9:13 am and is filed under News.

The governing body for European Football, UEFA, has announced that the forthcoming Europa League tournament will feature 12 teams from Asia.

According to a UEFA president Michel Platini, an 11th hour decision was made to include 12 additional teams in qualifying for the 2009/2010 Europa League.

“Over recent months we have been considering various approaches to creating a unique identity for the UEFA Europa League,” Platini told a news conference. “Eventually we decided that restricting the tournament to European teams would lead to unfavourable comparisons with the UEFA Champions League.”

“As a result we decided that the best approach to re-branding the tournament would be to involve top teams from a neighbouring region, thereby adding to the richness and diversity of the Europa League.”

Platini said that teams from India, Singapore, Thailand and Burma would be invited to join the tournament, along with domestic champions from Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Taiwan. European teams will be required to travel to Asia to contest their away fixtures.

“In some respects this move is experimental,” Platini said. “We are thinking of establishing a world club league, and the new Eurasia League will give us an opportunity to see how fans respond to inter-regional club competition.”