Re: Improving the 'Europa League'
You end up with a better Uefa Cup than European Cup then.
In the European Cup you'd have:
Emirates Marketing Project (currently 2nd in their league 15 points behind)
Real Madrid (currently 2nd in their league 13 points behind)
Dortmund (currently 2nd in their league 20 points behind)
Juventus (currently 1st in their league 9 points ahead)
Montpellier (currently 7th in their league 19 points behind)
And a load of other teams from minor leagues.
You could win it by beating one other decent side.
The reason people like the the Champion's league is because its the best quality competition in the world. The old European Cup never was that. The World Cup was considered a better quality competition.
I don't know so much about the World Cup being considered better quality but the Uefa Cup was always a harder competition to win. More rounds with more teams who were of a similar standard to the team that had won their league. This is why I say that if you allow two teams from the stronger nations then you maintain the high standard whilst increasing the standard of the Europa.
As it stands, using my philosophy, then you would have in the Europa League next season for example: Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, Leverkusen, Schalke, Freiburg, Valencia, Atl Madrid, Real Sociedad, AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio, Lyon, St Etienne, Nice, PSV, Feyenoord, Twente, Fenerbahce, Genk.
With these teams going into the champions league: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Man Utd, Emirates Marketing Project, Juventus, Napoli, Bayern Munich, Dortmund, PSG, Marseille, Ajax, Porto, Benfica, Galatasaray, Anderlecht.
A couple of seasons of entrants like that would soon bring the glamour back to the Europa League and increase revenues. The Champions League entrants don't look too diminished either.