Alright. Well, let’s take a breather from all them stripper stories and Rafael Nadal’s newly exposed (not like that) girlfriend. Looks like UEFA is trying to revamp their second-most followed club tournament. Unfortunately, it doesn’t include mandatory cheerleading squads and mascots.

European soccer’s governing body UEFA is considering changing the name of its second tier UEFA Cup competition to the UEFA Europa League.

The planned rebranding was revealed by Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the acting chairman of the new European Clubs Association, whose organisation was presented with the proposal on Monday.

“The hope is that a refreshment of the name and brand can help achieve better results than we’ve seen in the UEFA Cup in the past,” Rummenigge later told a media conference at UEFA’s Swiss headquarters.

“There has been a general impression that it has become a second-class competition and that we should get back to how it was ten or 15 years ago.”

Good for them. But is this going to enhance world interest? Because last we checked, the Champions League is seen in bars from Istanbul to Pasadena, Ca and we rarely meet anyone who even knows there’s another club tourney in Europe.

He said the new name was meant to better reflect the new group stage system being used in the competition from the 2009-10 season, in a direct copy of UEFA’s much more successful Champions League competition. UEFA announced in December that it was revamping the UEFA Cup’s format, dropping the unpopular five-team groups in which teams play each opponent just once either home or away in favour of a simpler home and away system.

We’d watch if Tottenham Hotspur, now with a young Giovanni Dos Santos attacking, were playing in it. But, nope. Eleventh place last year.

UEFA to Vote on New Name for UEFA Cup [Javno]
Image [Goal]