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By choosing to broadcast the Salonika-Marseille quarter-final of the very underrated Europa League Conference this Thursday, the M6 group channel endorses UEFA’s strategy of working football from below.
Olympique de Marseille will defend this Thursday (kick-off 9 p.m.) in Salonika the slim advantage (2-1) acquired during their quarter-final first leg of the Europa League Conference and W9 has decided to offer an exhibition in the clear , to the detriment of an Olympique Lyonnais – West Ham of the Europa League, that is to say a completely different sports outfit. In itself, the choice of the channel belonging to the M6 group is fascinating to question.
Kind of Roland-Garros bis
This requires the installation of decorative elements. Faced for ten years with the difficulty of selling its second-tier competition, the Europa League, to TVs, dried up by a Champions League that siphons off the three or four best-ranked formations in the most competitive European championships, the European Football Union (UEFA) had a brilliant idea in 2020: to work from the bottom, that is to say, to rid this Europa League, at least in its last rounds, of most of the teams of the least European nations. bankable, which starts with his idea somewhere on the side of the Belgians, Greeks or Czechs on the scale of sporting value. Problem: UEFA must offer a European outlet to all affiliated countries.
Solution: the Europa League Conference, a notch lower, generous receptacle for the small people of the round ball. To which we added, just to dress up the case to try to sell it a little, the fifth in the French championship (Stade Rennes), …