The European Cup, or the UEFA Champions League as it is now known, is a moneymaker that dwarfs all other World Cup competitions in terms of money. The revamped trophy will generate €750m (£502m) gross this season. But is UEFA’s flagship competition killing domestic Cups and the UEFA Cup?

This season, UEFA is set to earn more than €750m (£502m) from the Champions League, with TV rights sold to 230 markets (with Italy’s RAI and Spain’s Antena networks signing up). for the first time) and also from its business partners. UEFA also increased the number of its official trading partners from four to six, as Vodafone and Sony joined PlayStation, Ford, Heineken and MasterCard.

If you look at how UEFA distributes the money from the Champions League, you will discover why the competition is so attractive to the hundreds of clubs that compete for qualification for the tournament each season.

This season UEFA has promised to distribute up to 530 million euros among the 32 clubs qualified for the group stage. There is a €4.4m minimum just for being in the group stage, with another €600,000 up for grabs per game for a win and €300,000 each for a draw.

A further €10.5m will be distributed among clubs eliminated in the qualifiers, such as Northern Ireland’s Linfield. The amount they will receive is minimal for some clubs (such as La Liga, Serie A, etc), but for a club the size of Linfields it is a small windfall.

Going back to the group stage, the clubs that qualify for the round of 16 get a further €2.2m and a further €2.5m for reaching the quarter-finals. Clubs that reach the semi-finals win another €3m and if they win the trophy they win €7m or €4m for losing.

The Champions League, with all its financial benefits, has become a dominant feature in football, as clubs compete for qualifying places in their domestic league. This is because they believe that financial rewards are more important than winning cutlery.

Let’s take Palermo from the Italian Serie A as an example. Its president, Maurizio Zamparini, has stated on numerous occasions this season that the UEFA Cup is secondary to qualifying for next season’s Champions League.

He wants the club to take advantage of Juventus and AC Milan being out of contention for a top-four finish in Serie A (due to this summer’s match-fixing scandal) and sees this as an ideal opportunity for his club finish in the top four.

Because Zamparini put Champions League qualification above all else, Palermo have been fielding a second team in this season’s UEFA Cup (further devaluing the competition in some people’s eyes).

Other Italian Serie A clubs take a similar approach for the Coppa Italia and field second-tier teams. This is also the case in Spain when some La Liga clubs take the same approach in the Copa del Rey.

In England, the League Cup is seen as a distraction for many Premiership clubs with ambitions to qualify for the Champions League. This has resulted (over the last ten years) in many top-tier clubs submitting their reserves in the competition.

In the beginning, it was mainly the Premiership clubs that took this approach (mainly Manchester United and Arsenal), but some Championship sides have taken the lead this season (Birmingham City being a prime example).

Managers will claim this is to give fringe/young players experience, but commentators have suggested this is to keep players fresh for big league games in the race for European qualification.

There are even some suggestions that the FA Cup will go the same way as the League Cup, as the trophy in the eyes of some Premiership clubs is simply not worth it. A club can expect to receive £3m if they lift the trophy and, in terms of Champions League qualification, the financial reward isn’t worth it.

If a manager had a domestic Cup semi-final tie in the middle of the week and an important match at the weekend against a key opponent in European qualifying, what would be his priorities? On the one hand, they have a Cup match that could win a potential £3m prize (if they lift the trophy by reaching the final) and, on the other hand, a match where they could cement qualification for the League. of Champions and win 10 million pounds sterling.

It’s sad to say that most of the big clubs in Europe are starting to put money before trophies. They prefer to qualify for the Champions League at the cost of winning a domestic Cup.