Louis van Gaal, eight matches and the 36-team hole: Is the Champions League selling the wrong product?

Louis van Gaal does not need anyone to remind him that he is 75. At that age, a former Netherlands and Bayern Munich coach no longer has to choose his words to keep people happy. He called the expanded Champions League format “ridiculous,” said UEFA thinks only about money, and recalled that he warned about the workload 20 years ago. Those lines are enough to make a headline. But if we only record what he said, we miss the more important part: he is right about the symptom and wrong about the prescription.

The Goal.com report relays Van Gaal’s remarks. It offers no original investigation, no match data, no revenue table, no injury record. That is why I read it as a text about competition governance, not about tactics. The current format has 36 teams, a single league phase, eight matches instead of six, plus a preliminary play-off round. Thirty-six instead of 32, and eight instead of six, is the entire “technical” content of the story. The rest is an argument about quality, money and player health.

Van Gaal proposes dividing the competition into A, B and C classes based on playing strength, using ice hockey as a reference. He says the quality gap is growing, that only the best teams should be in the Champions League, and that this would produce fewer goals but a higher level of play. He also says UEFA is hiding behind the Europa League and the Conference League, that any Tom, Dick or Harry can take part, and that the calendar is too dense and is producing more injuries. The final line is the anchor: “I told UEFA that 20 years ago, but they do not listen to me.”

Two kinds of accusation need separating. “Ridiculous” is a value judgment. “Corrupt world” is a moral judgment. There is no specific payment, tender, vote or contract anywhere in the report. Editorially, then, this is commentary, not an allegation of a breach. Anyone who converts “corrupt” into a legal accusation is adding facts that are not in the source. I do not do that. I only point out that Van Gaal is attacking legitimacy, not legality.

His strongest point is workload. Eight league-phase matches instead of six is not a small change. With 36 teams, a single league phase produces 144 matches, compared with 96 under the old 32-team, six-match format. That is 48 extra matches in the league phase alone. Add the play-off round, add travel, add hotels, add airports, add recovery sessions cut short. Van Gaal is right that the calendar is overloaded; but his A/B/C proposal would lock in the hierarchy he complains about, not break it. That is the central contradiction of the whole story.

The way he builds the argument is notable. He says the quality gap is growing. True. He says big clubs have deeper squads and can rotate better. True. He says smaller clubs have to play extra matches without the corresponding squad depth. True. But an A/B/C solution based on “playing strength” requires a permanent ranking mechanism. In European football, that mechanism would almost certainly be historical coefficient. Historical coefficient is exactly what protects the big clubs. So he is using a rich man’s tool to treat a poor man’s disease.

I saw this paradox coming. Every time a new format is announced, people argue in two different languages. The language of sport talks about opportunity, fairness and dreams. The language of broadcasting talks about match volume, kick-off slots and rights contracts. Those languages do not share a frame of reference. Van Gaal speaks the language of sport. UEFA answers in the language of broadcasting. Neither is wrong inside his own frame. But fans are stuck in between, sitting behind a screen and believing they are watching a technical debate.

The television screen does not lie; only the person sitting behind it lies to himself. I have watched enough Champions League seasons to know that format does not make weak teams play better. It only gives weak teams a better chance to make money. That is a political objective, not a sporting one. Thirty-six teams instead of 32 is how UEFA buys stability from smaller associations. Each extra place is a vote of support. Each extra match is a sellable package. Van Gaal calls it dilution. UEFA calls it representation. Both are correct in their own dictionary.

On revenue, the report gives no figures. But the mechanism is clear: two extra guaranteed matchdays per team, one extra knockout round, hundreds of extra broadcast hours. That is more inventory from the same 36-club pool. No corruption allegation is needed to see the commercial motive. You only need to look at the calendar. The issue is not whether UEFA makes money. The issue is where the extra money goes. If most of it flows to the clubs with the highest coefficients, the quality gap Van Gaal worries about will grow. He is right about the symptom, but the report offers no distribution mechanism. That is a bigger hole than the A/B/C proposal.

To be clear: there is no injury data in the report. No soft-tissue injury rates, no minutes played, no 72-hour recovery windows. But Van Gaal’s argument is falsifiable. If next season shows injury rates rising at Champions League clubs compared with clubs playing only domestic football, he is right. If not, he is wrong. That is the difference between a testable criticism and a complaint. Modern football loves data, but data does not know fear. It does not care who is a legend. It only answers the question that is properly asked.

I have watched enough calendar debates to know that the solution usually chosen is not fewer matches. It is bigger squads, more bench options, more doctors, more recovery protocols. Competitions do not cut their own revenue. They shift the cost onto players and clubs. Van Gaal knows that. At 75, he no longer has to pretend UEFA will listen. “They do not listen to me” is a self-report of failed consultation, not a threat. It also shows he has been consistent for 20 years. Consistency is an asset. But consistency does not buy a seat in the meeting room.

Van Gaal’s second weakness is admitting there would be fewer goals. In the current media environment, that is an own goal. Broadcasters buy goals, drama and final-day jeopardy. They do not buy “quality of ball control.” A match between two elite teams can be tactically excellent and goal-poor. That is a connoisseur’s product, not a mass-audience product. Van Gaal is selling a different product to the same audience. UEFA cannot satisfy both. And UEFA chooses the product with more goals, because that is what sells advertising.

There is another point: an A/B/C proposal reduces cross-tier matches, but it does not automatically reduce total load. The A class would still need a large round-robin to be commercially viable. So would B and C. Otherwise the competition loses its competitive edge. Total matches might not fall at all; they would simply be redistributed. Van Gaal does not answer that question, and the report does not put it to him. That is the technical hole in his proposal. It is like a coach saying the team needs to defend better without saying who plays where.

I do not deny the value of the warning. I deny the way it is usually used. Whenever a famous former coach says something shocking, the media tends to turn it into a referendum on the format. But this is one voice, not a campaign. No players’ union is behind it, no club has signed it, no protest is on the terraces. The Goal.com report records remarks; it does not build a movement. The real pressure on UEFA is therefore low. What remains is an argument about legitimacy.

Van Gaal does not criticise any club or player. His target is the format. That makes his remarks hard to dismiss on personal grounds. It also makes them easy to ignore. A former coach with no seat of power has no channel to turn a view into policy. He has reputation, not power. Reputation makes headlines. Power makes change. UEFA can answer with a statement about “wide consultation,” and the story will close within a week.

On the competitive side, the 36-team format creates a bigger table, more matches and more final-day drama. That is why it exists. It was not designed to reduce goals. It was designed to increase the number of meaningful matches. Van Gaal says quality will fall because more weak teams are involved. But evidence from recent seasons shows that weaker teams often defend deep, which lowers the quality of the match. That is a predictable consequence. It also increases unpredictability. And unpredictability is what television loves. This is the conflict between sporting quality and broadcast quality. No format solves both.

On distribution, the report is silent. If the extra revenue were shared more evenly, smaller clubs could use it to deepen their squads and reduce the impact of the calendar. If the extra revenue flows to the big clubs, the gap grows. Van Gaal complains about the gap but says nothing about distribution. UEFA talks about solidarity but does not publish enough detail. This is where the debate should happen. Not at 36 versus 32. At who receives the extra share.

Based on my experience watching matches across many seasons, I see the 36-team format creating a debate about workload, not quality. The reason is simple: workload can be measured. Quality cannot. People can count matches, minutes and injuries. They cannot measure “quality” objectively. So the debate will always tilt toward the side with data. Van Gaal makes a quality argument, but his strongest point is workload. If he focused only on injuries and minutes, he would be harder to dismiss. But he chooses the language of a reformer. And reformers usually lose in the meeting room.

To be fair to him: he does not say the old format was perfect. He says the new one is a wrong step. He does not say UEFA is the only guilty party. He only says they do not listen. That is a limited criticism. It is not an agenda. It is a voice from outside. And in European football, an outside voice matters only when it aligns with the interests of a group inside. Right now, the inside group that benefits from eight matches is the clubs. They will not stand with him. They may agree on injuries, but they will not agree on fewer matches.

This is what fans often miss. Clubs complain about the calendar, but they also receive money from the calendar. They cannot demand fewer matches and higher revenue at the same time. Van Gaal does not have that contradiction, because he no longer runs a club. He can speak plainly. But precisely because he no longer runs a club, his words carry no policy weight. That is the paradox of reputation: the person with the right to tell the truth often has no power to change anything.

In governance terms, no one has broken a rule in this story. UEFA adopted the format through its own process. Van Gaal exercised his right to comment. No sanction is mentioned. The question is legitimacy, not legality. And legitimacy cannot be settled by a press conference. It needs data, consultation and time. If UEFA publishes injury data under the new format, it can show that the concern is unfounded. If it does not, it lets critics interpret freely. That is a communications choice, not a medical one.

I predict no format change in this cycle. The measures will be mandatory rest, squad expansion, medical protocols and perhaps minute limits for young players. Those measures absorb criticism without cutting revenue. Van Gaal will keep talking. UEFA will keep not listening. Fans will keep watching. That is how the system works. Not because someone is evil, but because interests are structured that way.

What I want to see is a debate about data. Publish injury rates by match volume. Publish revenue distribution by club. Publish the impact on domestic calendars. Then we can talk about format with numbers, not emotions. Van Gaal has offered a testable hypothesis. UEFA has the data to test it. The question is not who is right in an interview. The question is who will publish the data to prove the opposite. If no one does, the criticism will keep living, not because it is right, but because it has not been refuted.

Van Gaal may be wrong about the mechanism, but he is right about one thing: a competition cannot justify itself by match volume alone. It must justify itself by the quality and health of the people who produce it. If UEFA cannot do that, then every format, whether 32 or 36 teams, is just another way to sell tickets.