In a week where Europe's elite were preparing a breakaway to set up a Super League while UEFA outlined their plans to revolutionise the Champions League, one of the only areas people agree on is that European football needs reform.
Real Madrid president, and president of the doomed Super League, Florentino Perez came out fighting but his efforts to overhaul the game are now falling on deaf ears.
English football's six Super League participants have pulled out - four clubs apologising directly to their supporters for the error in their judgement - and while Perez insists it is not over, the notion of a Super League is fast fading.
But what this chaotic week at the top of European football has done is show the level of discontent inside clubs at the current state of competition on the continent.
Going for a closed-shop approach for a cartel of six English teams, three Spanish and three Italian was never going to wash; neither was Perez's assessment that 16 to 24-year-olds are not interested in watching 90-minute games.
While there were celebrations at fan protest foiling the Super League proposals, that is not to say there is a great deal of delight around UEFA's plans for change from 2024-25.
Outlined by president Aleksander Ceferin, UEFA's shake-up would see the total number of teams in the Champions League swell from 32 to 36 and the traditional group-stage format is to be abolished.
In its place a single league stage, which includes all 36 participating teams, would be devised, which would see every team guaranteed 10 'league stage' matches. Five of those matches would be at home and the other five would be away from home.
The top eight sides from that 'league stage' format would progress to the knockout stage automatically.
Those remaining sides running from ninth to 24th would then enter two-legged eliminators to determine the other eight teams into the last-16.
So it got Sportsmail thinking - just how would we create a real Super League? From ditching the coefficient rules, capping ticket prices and making more matches available free-to-air to boost TV ratings, here is how we'd plan to do it...
MORE GAMES FREE TO AIR
First thing to note here is that it is completely unrealistic to expect all Champions League games to return to free-to-air TV in the UK.
UEFA sell television rights in three-year cycles and BT Sport have a monopoly on all 420 European games - including Europa League and UEFA Conference League (a third-tier competition scheduled to start next season) - in the UK through until 2024 in a deal worth £1.2billion.
And so, no, as much as it would be brilliant to have games back on ITV, it won't happen.
But if a handful of major games returned it would be brilliant for supporters who do not have access to, or cannot afford, satellite TV subscriptions.
BT Sport have typically broadcast the finals of the Champions League and Europa League live for free on YouTube and that could be one way of opening themselves up to a new audience.
Football London revealed earlier this year that viewing figures in the UK for this season's group stages saw a steep decline and that can have all sorts of ramifications in terms of the appetite of sponsors and money generated.
Give the people what they want, UEFA!
DITCH THE CLUB COEFFICIENT
One element of UEFA's plans for change that caused frustration is that from 2024 two Champions League spaces will be given to the clubs with the highest club coefficient who didn't qualify through domestic competition.
The way it works is that an individual club's coefficient - calculated by UEFA - is the sum of the points earned by said club in the Champions League and the Europa League over the previous five campaigns.
Alternatively it can be 20 per cent of the club's national association (e.g. the FA in England) co-efficient over the same time period, if that proves to be higher.
So for all the uproar at the closed-shop cartel behaviour in a European Super League, there will seemingly be two very lucrative Golden Tickets to make sure one of the established 'elite' isn't missing out.
UEFA take their rankings and use it to seed teams accordingly, including in qualifying and group stages of their competitions.
Clubs earn two points for a win, one point for a draw, and no points for a defeat in games of the main stages of the Champions League and the Europa League - there is a lot more to it but the point here is that those clubs with long-standing reputations in Europe, such as Arsenal, can prove heavily protected.
Liverpool, using this season as an example, could miss out on the top four in the Premier League and so miss out on next season's Champions League, and yet under these 2024-25 proposals would benefit from a coefficient back door.
If we are singing the praises of competition in wake of the abandoned Super League then let's do it right. It is hard enough for smaller sides to crack Europe's top competitions as it is without history working against them.
STAGGER KICK-OFF TIMES
This is one of the big bones of contention when it comes to the knockout stages.
The matches are far superior to what is served up in the groups and yet you are left to choose which one you are going to watch.
Take the previous round of the Champions League and on one night fans were left flicking between Borussia Dortmund against Manchester City and Liverpool against Real Madrid.
Both ties held great interest for supporters as well as neutrals and so had the games followed each other then viewing figures would have rocketed for both. Win-win.
It appeared UEFA had listened to irate fans on this topic when, ahead of the 2018-19 campaign they binned off the universal 7.45pm kick-off time.
That was to offer two time slots for group-stage games - either 5.55pm or 8pm - in a bid to make more matches marketable and available to watch without clashes.
So, why doesn't this extend to the knockout stages?
Another example: Paris Saint-Germain are playing out a thriller against Bayern Munich and yet Chelsea against Porto swallowed part of the viewers for their double-header in Seville.
It is a no-brainer and an easy way to bolster viewing figures.
Clubs may prefer later kick-offs but this could conceivably be rotated between teams as they progress.
If this is, as is often suggested, the best club competition in the world, we want to be able to watch as much of it as possible (but in its current form, nobody wants a competition with 100 matches).
CAP TICKET PRICE
This issue feels as old as time itself but in the last decade it has become unsustainable and there has to be change brought about following the shambles of the botched Super League.
Greed cannot continue to dictate the top of the game and the groundswell of support across rival fan-bases to echo that point said it all.
The pandemic, too, has shown how soulless the game is without fans and while owners are determined to line their pockets with as much cash as possible supporters are being priced out.
Back in August 2019 UEFA came to a compromise with Champions League clubs over pricing for away tickets.
'Fans are the lifeblood of the game,' Ceferin said at the time.
'By capping ticket prices, we want to make sure that away fans can still travel to games and play their part in making the atmosphere inside football stadiums so special.'
But those caps that they agreed remained out of reach for some fans, particularly when travel costs are factored in.
UEFA accepted caps of €70 (£60) in the Champions League and €45 (£39) in the Europa League.
It's a start but fans at the top end of that scale are still looking at hundreds of pounds to go one game when travel, accommodation, food and a matchday ticket is factored in.
If fans are the lifeblood of the game, and if fans are the ones who thwarted the Super League, put the issue of ticket prices back under the microscope.
DON'T MAKE THE FINAL A CORPORATE EVENT
This goes hand-in-hand with the pricing issue above but attending the final is so expensive that it is almost not a joke when fans say they need to re-mortgage their homes.
No match is worth such an expense and giving the final back to the fans - and not the Dirty Dozen who plotted to take it from them with a Super League - would be a universally popular move by Ceferin and UEFA.
Istanbul, the venue this time round, was due to host last season's final before the pandemic thwarted those plans.
But before Covid put a halt to a trip to Turkey, fans got a glimpse of just how expensive it would be if they were to follow their team all the way there.
UEFA's website urged fans to apply for tickets with the following price points explained: Category 4 started at €70 (£61); Category 3 started at €180 (£156); Category 2 started at €450 (£390); Category 1 started at €600 (£520).
There is an understanding that the Champions League is one of the most prestigious events in the calendar but no tickets below £61 instantly keeps low-income fans away.
Whatever way you dice it up that isn't right and goes against the rhetoric that fans are the 'lifeblood' of the game.
An early look at this season's finale at Istanbul's Ataturk Olympic Stadium on ticket re-sale websites shows fans would need to spend more than £3,000 to get a hospitality seat.
It's absurd for one match, no matter the luxury, and remains an issue that UEFA have never truly got to grips with.
If one positive can come out of the last week it is that fans can become a priority, rather than an afterthought.
DITCH AWAY GOALS
Implemented back in 1965 - after furore over a coin toss settling a Liverpool game - the 'away goals' rule is brought up, fiercely debated and then ultimately left alone season after season.
It has its biggest critics and also its staunch defenders, this writer included, but either way there would be plenty supporting the decision to get rid of it.
The argument is that by removing it games would become more open and therefore more exciting, because teams would no longer be content to prioritise keeping a first-leg clean sheet at home, or play for a draw on aggregate if they are leading on away goals.
Former Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger was banging this exact drum back in 2013 but was routinely ignored.
'The weight of the away goal is too heavy, too big and is not justifiable anymore,' he said at the time. 'I think it is a problem in the modern game.'
Its defenders would point to that fact that only two games in this season's competition have been settled by away goals - Porto knocking out Juventus and PSG knocking out Bayern.
The season before it was one game that fell on away goals; in 2018-19 it was three Champions League games, two of which involved Tottenham.
Big reasons behind getting rid of it are that many feel it is counterproductive in the sense that it can encourage a home team to prioritise a clean sheet rather than a goal as their value will come attacking away from home.
There is also annoyance at sides losing and still progressing - take PSG losing 1-0 recently, only to celebrate because they simply needed to lose by one because of their three away goals in Germany.
Whatever your feelings on this - and I, myself, lean towards going for one-off ties rather than two-legged affairs - the desire for away goals has waned significantly in recent years.
Source: m.allfootballapp.com