Czech football teams eliminated from Champions League

Czech football is going through a low spell. No local teams will be playing in the showcase Champions League this season after qualification matches this week. That will cost the clubs themselves and a tv station which bought the rights.

Slavia Prague - Sheriff Tiraspol, photo: CTK

Catastrophe: that was the headline in the Czech Republic’s main sports daily on Thursday after the Czech football champions Slavia Prague were deprived of the chance of playing in the prestigious and lucrative European Champions League.

Slavia failed to hold onto a one goal lead in the dying seconds of the qualification game against Moldovan champions Sheriff Tiraspol.

Slavia assistant manager Petr Vrabec was defensive and philosophical in the post match press conference.

“It’s sport, it’s football. In football these things happen. Of course it’s a disappointment for us. But tragedy — tragedy is what happens when someone dies.”

Slavia Prague - Sheriff Tiraspol, photo: CTK

Slavia’s defeat followed a day after city rivals Sparta failed to hold onto a 3:1 home victory against Greek team Panathinaikos during the return leg. They went down 3:O on Tuesday and missed out on the chance to carry their Champions League hopes into the final qualification round.

Thus no Czech team will make it into the initial group stage of the Champions League this season.

The two Prague clubs have each lost out on a 185 million crown —around 10.3 million dollar — appearance payment just for getting into the group stage. After spending tens of millions of crowns during the summer break, Slavia is now said to be looking at the books with a view to offloading some of the squad.

Sparta Prague - Panathinaikos Athens, photo: CTK

The no shows by the two top teams come at a gloomy time for the Czech game. The national tam has slipped to 22nd in the FIFA world rankings, its worst position since 1995 with big doubts over qualification for next year’s World Cup in South Africa.

But not just the Prague teams will be wringing their hands about the latest results. The bosses of Czech tv channel Nova Sport should also be shedding some tears.

Nova Sport broke the previous monopoly of public broadcaster Czech Television by buying up the rights to two Champions League matches a week. Czech Television opted to give more coverage of the newly created and more lowly Europa League. But the Europa League now looks a lot more likely to be the place where the Czech teams will soon be playing.