![]() In that context, you can see why many thought Spurs were better off exiting the Europa Conference League in 2021 if it helped their bid to qualify for the Champions League.Įuropa Conference League advocates sometimes argue that being in the competition means a chance to blood academy players. By contrast, the average amount teams were paid for the Champions League group stages alone was £53.7million and that’s before taking into account far more lucrative TV rights and the vast sums for going deep in the knockout stages (by reaching the quarters Chelsea picked up £79.7million in prize money). Financially, the rewards are hardly great either given the volume of games - Roma pocketed around £17million in prize money for winning the competition last season, alongside some pretty paltry television money. That’s a huge amount of effort for a trophy without a huge amount of prestige and which carries the reward of only a place in the following season’s Europa League (something Spurs should achieve by finishing in the Premier League’s top six, or potentially top seven, next season anyway). ![]() That is surely inarguable given Spurs could end up having to play 17 Conference League matches, starting with two play-off matches in August. He even admitted that being in the competition and not winning it would make the Conference League seem like an “inconvenience”. Harry Kane was naturally respectful about the competition when asked on the weekend, but qualifying for it is hardly likely to convince him to sign a new contract this summer. More importantly than taunts from opposition fans, which obviously don’t really matter, it’s not a competition that even if they won would really move the dial on the kinds of players Spurs could keep or bring in. Don’t win it and they would get taunted for losing to Mickey-Mouse opposition in a nothing competition win it and they’d face accusations it was only a tinpot trophy anyway which hasn’t really ended that much-mentioned drought. There is some validity in this perspective, but in reality, Spurs would be on a hiding to nothing. Who, therefore, the argument goes, are Spurs to turn their noses up at a trophy given it’s 15 years since they won one? Mourinho himself was overcome with emotion. Many of those in the first two iterations have loved it, and even a club the size of Roma managed by a serial winner in Jose Mourinho were delighted to win the inaugural version last year. It should be said that the Europa Conference League is a great competition for a lot of teams, including ones like Villa and Brighton, who have been starved of European football. That’s one of many reasons I believe it would benefit Spurs not to be in the competition next season. Without those spare midweeks, his view was that Tottenham’s small squad probably wouldn’t have had the legs to overhaul Arsenal and claim fourth place. In fact, the main positive Spurs got from the competition was that early exit, which Antonio Conte later acknowledged helped them qualify for the Champions League at the end of the season. ![]() It’s fair to say Tottenham’s first foray into the Europa Conference League two years ago doesn’t conjure up especially happy memories. Perhaps it was when Spurs had to forfeit their match against Rennes because of a COVID-19 outbreak, thereby exiting the competition before the knockout stage. When did you fall in love with the Europa Conference League? Was it losing away at Pacos de Ferreira? Or when Harry Winks emotionally said “we’re meant to be a team” after the defeat at Vitesse? Maybe it was the humiliation at NS Mura? The case against the Conference League: Charlie Eccleshare So, The Athletic’s Tottenham writers have debated whether they think qualifying for the competition would benefit the club… The Europa Conference League is a curious competition, raising a number of issues from a Tottenham perspective, including glory versus pragmatism, Spurs’ current standing in European football, and what their ultimate aims are at the moment. The ideal outcome for Spurs from here would be to qualify for the Europa League by coming sixth, but as it stands they look marginally more likely than Brighton and Villa to finish seventh and collect the European consolation (or, depending on your perspective, booby) prize.
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