League Cup will be reduced to four teams

Professional clubs agreed this Friday, during the Presidents’ Summit, to reduce the League Cup to just one final four. Measure should come into force from the 2024/25 season, but it still has to be approved at the Club League’s general meeting. Centralization of television rights was also discussed.

The Football League Cup should be reduced, from the 2024/25 season, to just four teams that will compete for the trophy for a week, in the usual final four. This was one of the measures that the clubs agreed to, during the Presidents’ Summit, of the Portuguese Professional Football League (LPFP), held in Porto.

At that meeting, which was attended by the leaders of the Liga and Liga 2 sports societies, namely Pinto da Costa (FC Porto), Rui Costa (Benfica), Frederico Varandas (Sporting) or António Salvador (Sporting de Braga), it was also decided to propose a reduction in matches in the Portuguese Cup, and maintaining a competitive framework, with 18 teams, in the two main national championships.

The reduction of matches defended for the Cups is related to the reformulation that UEFA intends to make, for the 2024/25 season, in European competitions, namely in the Champions League, which will take four weeks off from domestic competitions, which would require a extra effort from clubs to fulfill the entire competition calendar.

“Under the competitive changes promoted by UEFA for 2024, the proposal is to reduce the number of teams in the League Cup, and the respective games, while maintaining the final four. On the table is an internationalization project, which takes advantage of the period, to play these games in an international space”, said Pedro Proença.

About the four teams that will be qualified to play in that final four, the manager said that the model is still being studied, but that it can go through “the first four classified in the League, in the previous season”.

Regarding the proposed changes to the Portuguese Cup, which will have to be made for approval by the Portuguese Football Federation, the clubs defend, according to Pedro Proença, “moving to just one game the phase of the competition that is played in two legs [meias-finais]🇧🇷

The president of the LPFP recalled that the measures discussed this Friday at the Summit of Presidents, a political body, will have to be formalized in the form of proposals to be voted on at the LPFP’s general assembly, in order to be approved.

Pedro Proença, who shared the will of most clubs to maintain the championships with 18 teams, contrary to what Sporting de Braga defends, who wanted a reduction in participants, revealed that in this session the topic of centralization of audiovisual rights was also discussed. , having attended the meeting the president of the Spanish League, Javier Tebas, who shared the model used in the neighboring country.

“The process of centralizing audiovisual rights is irreversible, and clubs are still considering the anticipation of its implementation [agendada para 2028]🇧🇷 It will be the market to dictate whether this can happen” said Pedro Proença.

The leader points out that the intention of centralizing rights “is to reduce the difference between those who earn the most and the rest, which is currently in the proportion of 1 to 15”, and although he still does not detail the model to be implemented, he guarantees that the assumption “is maintain minimum contract values [televisivos]with a good part of the increase going to those who earn the least”.

“The model to follow could be that of La Liga [Espanha]in which 50% of the revenue is distributed equally, 25% for the sporting performance of the previous season and the remaining 25% through the processes of implementation of the clubs’ brands in the national space”, shared Pedro Proença.

The Secretary of State for Youth and Sport, João Paulo Correia, also participated in this meeting, who addressed some legislative initiatives in force, namely in the prevention and combat of violence in Sport.