There will be no English sides on show when Europe’s elite club competition, the Champions League, resumes this week with the first legs of its semi-finals.

The Premier League’s sole team still standing across the three European competitions this season are Aston Villa, who host Olympiacos of Greece at the same stage in UEFA’s third-tier tournament, the Europa Conference League, on Thursday.

After Manchester City and Arsenal were knocked out in the Champions League quarter-finals — and Liverpool and West Ham United followed them in the last eight of the Europa League — it led to grumbling among Premier League executives about the domestic schedule.

With England almost certain to miss out on a fifth Champions League spot in next season’s debut of a revamped format — via the coefficient rankings that are awarded to the two best-performing leagues this campaign (Italy and, very likely, Germany) — some English clubs have argued they should get more help from their domestic top flight when playing in Europe.

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This bubbled to the surface when LFP, the governing body for France’s Ligue 1, postponed the domestic matches for its teams playing in Europe to give them extra rest.

They have done so again for the semi-finals involving Paris Saint-Germain (in the Champions League tomorrow — Wednesday) and Marseille (in the Europa League on Thursday).

However, these English frustrations have led to eyerolls in some quarters across Europe given Premier League sides earn significantly more than their rivals on the continent and have the resources to acquire the squad depth most non-Premier League teams can only dream of.

Also, at least one English club has reached the Champions League final in five of the past six seasons.

So what conversations have been happening, do the Premier League teams have a point and what’s been the reaction in France to their new approach?

European leagues and a battle for supremacy

“The priority in scheduling should be to accommodate English clubs competing in Europe.”

This was the view of a senior source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, close to Villa, England’s sole remaining representative in Europe this season.

They felt this was even more the case in their Europa Conference League quarter-final earlier this month as they faced Lille, fourth in Ligue 1, who had no game on the weekend between the tie’s two legs.

They then defeated Lille on penalties four days later.

Despite them progressing to the final four, however, the Villa source said more should be done to protect English teams in Europe.

Villa played Lille, who had no league game between the two Europa Conference League legs (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

They said the Premier League is responsible for the poor performance of English clubs in Europe this season because of the scheduling — particularly for those in the Europa and Conference Leagues, with the tight Thursday to Sunday turnaround that involves.

“The result will be the loss of a fifth spot in the Champions League,” they told The Athletic.

Villa’s suggestion was to move their meeting with Spurs back, to the Monday night, affording additional rest between fixtures.

Speaking anonymously to protect relationships, a senior figure at West Ham — who were knocked out by Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League quarter-finals — agreed English clubs needed more help but said the problem was finding the slots to play any matches that get postponed.

They described the Thursday-Sunday routine as a “killer”, adding: “It’s so sad the Premier League has only one team in the last 12 in Europe — and that’s in the worst competition.”

The backdrop to this comes amid talk of the increasingly congested football calendar and the growing demands placed on players.

After squeezing past Chelsea 1-0 in the FA Cup semi-finals on April 20, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola vented his fury at the fixture schedule.

That new 32-team tournament takes place between June 15 and July 13 in the United States next summer.

FIFA points out this larger Club World Cup is only being played every four years, not annually as happened with its smaller predecessor, and will only impact Chelsea and Manchester City from the Premier League in that inaugural 2025 edition.

On the continent, leagues have appeared more willing to help teams who are competing in Europe.

Like England, Portugal still has two domestic cup competitions, but its Primeira Liga (another top division made up of 18 teams) often grants its big three — Sporting Lisbon, Benfica and Porto — a weekend off before big Champions League matches.

Spain, Germany and Italy, who all only need to fit in one domestic cup, regularly use a Friday night slot for the team playing a Champions League fixture the following Tuesday.

For example, Real Madrid’s match in 20-team La Liga against Real Sociedad, originally set for the Saturday of last weekend, was moved to the previous evening to give the Madrid players extra rest before their trip to Bayern Munich for the first leg of a Champions League semi-final tonight (Tuesday).

That said, there has been frustration, too.

Roma, who face Leverkusen in the Europa League semi-finals on Thursday, issued a complaint to Serie A after their match against Udinese on April 14 was suspended when Roma defender Evan Ndicka collapsed on the pitch during the second half, and Serie A decided the final 18 minutes would be played last Thursday, April 25.

Roma argued this put them at a disadvantage against Leverkusen because they faced Bologna on the Monday, April 22, finished the Udinese game three days later and then had to travel to an away match against Napoli (kicking off at 6pm local time — 5pm BST, 12pm ET) on Sunday, before their semi-final’s first leg at the Stadio Olimpico.

In a statement, Roma said: “AS Roma with its results and four consecutive European semi-finals contributed to UEFA ranking and thus five slots for Italian teams in the next edition of the Champions League, like few others.
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