I expect it's down to £££$$$ again!
The champions league is THE big prize outside of international football. If you don't finish in the top four you lose out in the top money. Apparantly the F.A. Cup is less important than a top four place.
Although Chelski won that & the league cup, they had to win the champions league in the money mens terms & they didn't! HeHe
Football is now a corporate affair & that's the way it is unfortunately. Too many suits, seats that you have to sit in & lacking atmosphere. What used to be the working peoples sport is now an extremely expensive day out.
Look at the corruption in Italian football & the amount of money that must be floating around for the match fixing that went on.
I'm no Liverpool fan but I really do hope they do to AC Milan what they did to them in Instanbul & if there's any justice in this world, they will. Cheating gits should have been strung up. We all suspect I'm sure, that if it had of happened here in England, the teams involved would have been banned from Europe for years.
5 -3 Liverpool AET is my good odds at the bookies tip btw!