Kieran Maguire: Liverpool want ‘lucrative’ Premier League overhaul as £80m already secured
Liverpool likely want to see the Premier League reduced to 16 teams to accommodate an even bigger Champions League.
That is the view of finance guru Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively to Football Insider about European football’s premier club competition.
Per the Liverpool Echo yesterday (20 February), Liverpool have already secured £80million from their Champions League exploits this term.
And TV income from the competition is set to soar after Uefa secured a new £12.5billion rights agreement, as reported by The Times on 9 February.
The deal is for the 2024 to 2027 rights cycle, which is the first under the new 36-team Swiss model.
Maguire claims that the likes of Liverpool may want to see the number of domestic matches reduced with priority given to more “lucrative” fixtures.
“Things can be moved around, but you would need some major changes to accommodate that,” he told Football Insider’s Adam Williams.
“The nature of the Swiss model is that you can very easily flex in terms of the number of matches played.
“Therefore, there will be a lot of pressure from the teams at the top to reduce the size of domestic divisions and increase the Champions League.
“Ideally, they would like to play in a 16-team Premier League. That would also theoretically allow them to fit in more lucrative pre-season tours.”
Liverpool beat Inter Milan 2-0 in the last-16 first leg last Wednesday (16 February).
Jurgen Klopp’s side, who are 2nd in the Premier League, play the second leg at Anfield on 8 March.
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