Tony  Leen
THAT vigorous friction noise you’re curious about is the Premier League’s chairman rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of a play-off for the fourth and final Champions League spot.
What’s not to like about the Premier League’s latest cash-cow idea? It keeps the season boiling until the final Sunday for the teams in the top half of the table, it gives them an additional stick to wave at Sky when it comes to rights re-negotiation and, as a free extra, it may finally break up the Top Four’s exclusive hold (is that a quodopoly?) on that Champions League pot of gold.
The only surprise? Given how long the system has been in  play in the Championship, how come it took this long to reach the rarified atmosphere of the Richard Scudamore’s office?
Before the traditionalists march on the Premier League’s Gloucester Place headquarters, there are clear benefits in the idea.
Yes, Alex Ferguson is said to be against the idea (as I’m sure Messrs Wenger, Ancelotti and Benitez are), because this is an opportunity to spread the wealth beyond those clubs who can almost factor in Champions League revenue into their annual budget. The same four clubs – Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea – have filled the top four positions in five of the past six seasons. Only Everton, in 2005, have broken their stranglehold.
But if this gets a green light, Champions League qualification leads to more money and prestige, money and prestige leads to better players, and better players lead to Champions League qualification.
However, there are drawbacks - further end of season fixture congestion being one, and, as Tony Cascarino pointed out yesterday, a further erosion of the purity of the ‘Champions’ League.
Explained Cas: “The Champions League began as a competition for the domestic champions of each country, then it opened itself up to the second, third and in some cases fourth-best team. The idea of introducing a play-off system dilutes it even further. We could have a seventh-placed side representing England in the Champions League - would that be right?”
Hardly, but no less wrong than the fourth-placed team winning the CL. Is there such a difference if it becomes the fifth, sixth or seventh?
There are others too. Much significance is being attached to Sunday’s meeting of Liverpool and Man City on the basis of the race for fourth place. Surely the intensity of such an occasion would be utterly diluted if both were all but assured of a top seven place, and a spot in the play offs? Also, where does that leave Europa Cup qualification. Does the three play-off teams who don’t reach the Cl ‘Promised Land’ end of with the old UEFA Cup as a consolation prize?
However on balance, I think the idea has real merit, much more than the cack-handed notion of a ‘39th game’ abroad, one of the PL’s less inventive ways to secure an additional revenue stream.