Once more, with seeding. Uefa's new Champions League group-stage format is known as the "Swiss system", and frankly you can write your own jokes there. It's full of holes. It's totally unaccountable and its inner workings largely impenetrable to outsiders. It's a handy conduit for sequestering and laundering the money of some of the world's worst people. It's a complex and morally contested way of putting people to sleep for long periods of time. Take your pick.
Perhaps fittingly, it is in Switzerland that the first strides into this bold new era take place, with Young Boys v Aston Villa selected as the early kick-off today, alongside Juventus v PSV. And of course this is an emblematic choice for other reasons, too.
The Berne-based club may be competition outsiders, having secured their spot in a playoff against Galatasaray last month. But domestically they have been an insuperable force, claiming their sixth Swiss title in the past seven years despite a season marred by internal wrangling and insipid route-one football.
How have they done it? Back in April, the Swiss Football League published the latest set of club financial figures, which showed that Young Boys have basically left the competition for dead. Nobody else gets close to them on wages, revenue, assets, profit, league points. Their broadcasting income last season was roughly equivalent to that of all their Super League rivals put together.
And of course the vast majority of this income derived from the Champions League, allowing Young Boys to invest in a league where everyone else needs to sell.
This year's competition should make them a guaranteed £36m, more than the annual revenue of all but one of their Swiss Super League rivals and - by a happy coincidence - the planned cost of the new centre of excellence they are building on the outskirts of Berne.
This story is from the September 17, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the September 17, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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