The UEFA Club Competitions Committee have been meeting up in Porto ahead of tonight’s Champions League Final, and have had a meeting where they have finally decided to do away with the away goals rules in all their competitions.
This was confirmed yesterday by the Times, who reported “Uefa competitions chiefs have given the green light to scrapping the away goals rule in the Champions League and Europa League from next season.
The move to ditch the rule — which has existed in European club competitions since 1965 — was revealed by The Times this week and Uefa’s club competitions committee have now took the decision, which now needs to be approved by Uefa’s executive committee.”
This year Arsenal would have profited from the rule if they had managed one goal at home against Unai Emery’s Villarreal side, but of course history shows that the Gunners failed yet again.
The year before we exited to Olympiakos on away goals in Mikel Arteta’s first ever European tie as manager, but of course we can all remember many Champions League knockouts where Arsene Wenger’s sides were the victims of away goals, especially against Monaco which particularly upset our former boss.
Wenger also cast his vote against the away rule this season and it seems he now has got his way after a riduculous season where teams were generally playing on neutral grounds because of the distruption of the Covid virus.
I think most Arsenal fans would agree with scrapping the rule, despite the fact that we can’t take advantage of it due to the sorry fact that we are not in Europe for the first time in 25 years…