I really hope Borussia Dortmund win tomorrow. These are the Champions League outright odds courtesy of William Hill:

 

Bayern Munich 2/5

 

Borussia Dortmund 2/1

Europa League winners to get a Champions League place from 2015.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22640095

 

Not quite sure how to take this, it seems to be an attempt by UEFA to get clubs to take the competition seriously and generate more revenue. Fans are more likely to go to the games if there is such a prize awaiting the winner.

I think it's a great move. There are plenty of good clubs and players in the competition, the real problem is the lack of desire to win it. A bigger prize for the winner, will help things slightly, although to really make clubs take the tournament seriously, they'd probably have to increase prize money quite significantly too, a lot of these costs would however be offset by revenue generated from the increased reputation of the tournament.

They have also said that, if the winners of the Europa League or Champions League don't qualify for the CL through their league position, that country will get an extra place. In other words, Tottenham would have qualified for this year's CL if that rule had been in place. The only exception would be in the highly unlikely event that both the EL and the CL were won by teams from the sale country and that both of them failed to qualify by their league position.

 

I think it's worth a try. The biggest risk for the individual leagues is that, towards the end of the season, a team might put more effort into the EL than their own domestic league. Even there, if the long-term effect is to get more different teams in the CL and, therefore, better able to compete against the regulars financially, that need not necessarily be a bad thing.

 

The worst thing about the CL was demonstrated by Arsenal's celebrations last weekend. Before the current CL format no team would have celebrated finishing fourth in that way.

I think it's a sensible idea, both finalists this year were knocked out at the CL group stage and any team in that position is surely completely deincentivised from putting 100% in because of the effect that so many games could have on getting in again next season through league position.

Bayern won 2-1, late goal from Robben sealed Dortmund's fate. Good game though.

go bayern