[This is the second of a three-part review of this season's CONCACAF Champions League.]
The Champions League represented not only a new frontier for the clubs in the region, but also for CONCACAF. Never before had it organized a competition of such scope, complexity, and length before. There were a few hiccups, but overall the competition went very well for an inaugural edition. Nevertheless there were some issues with the organization that are worth pointing out. In fairness, I should mention that CONCACAF has address some of the issues that I will describe, but some others haven't been dealt with.
The first issue was the compressed schedule of the preliminary and group phases of the competition. The group phase was compressed into a seven-week period which I thought at the time of the initial rollout of the Champions League was nuts. It was by far the shortest group phase of the Champions League-style competitions (Europe schedules their group phase over 12 weeks, South America and Asia over 10 weeks, and Africa 9 weeks), and there was no allowance for weather-related postponements which is a necessity in this region because of hurricane season. Two matches were postponed because of hurricanes -- Harbour View's home tie against UNAM in the preliminary round, and Houston Dynamo's group stage match against L.A. Firpo. The Harbour View match had to be abandoned because of the compressed schedule and the series was played as a single match at UNAM's ground, an extremely unfair decision against the Jamaican side. Dynamo's match was rescheduled for mid-November, three weeks after the conclusion of the group stage. Fortunately the match turned out to be winner-take-all, but it was a less than ideal situation made even less so by the compressed and inflexible schedule.
CONCACAF has remedied the situation by moving up the preliminary round and extending the group stage by two weeks. A 10 or 12-week period for the group stage is too much to ask for at this point unless MLS switches to a European season schedule, which isn't likely anytime soon. Therefore, the current group stage schedule is perhaps the best we'll have for the foreseeable future.
The second major issue concerns stadia. CONCACAF forced a couple of home matches away from their original countries because of a lack of international-level stadia there. Hankook Verdes' home tie against Cruz Azul was moved to Guatemala, and Real Estelí's home match against Montreal Impact was moved to Honduras. Isidro Metapán's home matches in the Champions League were moved from their home ground to Estadio Cuscatlán -- after protracted discussions where it appeared possible that Metapán might be forced to withdraw. The previous regulations allowed for matches to be played in a neighboring country if there were no international-level stadia in the original country, but that loophole has been closed for this year's edition. As a result Belize and Nicaragua were excluded from continental competition this season.
I have said in the past that the Champions League wasn't just a challenge to CONCACAF, but also to the clubs throughout the region. It is clear that the clubs and national federations in the smaller countries need to pool their resources toward the construction of at least one football stadium that meets minimum standards for international club and national team matches. At the same time, just what are the minimum standards for hosting a CONCACAF Champions League match? CONCACAF does have a list of requirements for seating, lighting, dressing room, and media facilities. But which requirements must be satisfied in order to host a CCL match, and which requirements could slide provisionally (they have to be met within a year)? There are requirements for promotional space for sponsors, to be located at or near the stadium. Were those spaces even used last season? CONCACAF needs to make those types of specifications clear in future versions of their regulations.
I'm now going to talk about how the Champions League appeared on television. I wasn't able to attend any CCL matches in person, and any comments from people who did are very much welcome. I can't assess the quality of the CCL match programs having not attended the matches, but if the Gold Cup programs are anything to go by, CONCACAF has room for a lot of improvement. Player numbers simply must appear in the roster lineups. The regulations on the public address systems were not always followed, and didn't appear to be enforced by CONCACAF. From the group stage to the knockout phase, I would always hear the "Charge!" tune during an Atlante match, or the annoying siren at odd times of Cruz Azul's matches. The quality of the television coverage appeared to differ between Telefutura and Fox Soccer Channel, enough that there needs to be a standard video feed of Champions League matches, with their own special graphics that local broadcasters can supplement, but a basic standardized feed. I'm going on memory and I need to look through my notes, but the broadcast quality didn't appear to change that much between matches in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. So perhaps the same camera teams are being used for matches, or at least they're well trained.
Now, the last issue -- financial benefits of the Champions League. Were there any benefits to the clubs for additional matches and TV exposure in the CCL? Did the Champions League make a profit at CONCACAF HQ? If so, will any of those profits make their way to the participating clubs? All of these issues, after all, were the point behind the formation of the Champions League. If not, we're merely dealing with a glorified version of the Champions' Cup, where prize money was given to the winner only, and clubs made whatever money they could from home matches. With the additional travel, likelihood of injury, and increased fatigue due to fixture congestion, the CCL will get very burdensome very quickly if there isn't significant reward to its clubs. And as of now, we still have no words from CONCACAF on how they did financially from last season's tournament. CONCACAF is not at all shy about wanting to make money, but they are notoriously silent about how much money they actually made, so I'm willing to guess that they don't have much money to spread around from the first edition of the CCL.
In conclusion, I was pleasantly surprised with the organization of the CCL. It turned out to be more professional and polished, and the federation enforced most of its regulations most of the time. There are some issues that will require improvement, such as broadcasting, critical/provisional stadia requirements, and financial renumeration. In the long term, it will be the financial benefits that will determine the future interest in, and success of, the Champions League.
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