UEFA tournaments keeping the old format

Imagine yourself if UEFA had decided to.

*Keep the UEFA Champions League as a tournament just for national champions even from the 1997–1998 season (including the women's edition from I think 2009–2010)
*Continued letting the second and third of any country into the UEFA Europa League from the 1997–1998 season (and UEFA Cup as it first was called).
*Kept the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup even after the 1998–1999 season.

How would international European club team soccer have been affected? Which winners of various tournaments would be have? Remember that, for example, Liverpool FC couldn't have won the 2004–2005 UEFA Champions League.
 
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Definitely a bit more even regarding the different national football leagues. The design that was created in the late 1990s basically favoured the big clubs in the biggest leagues - Italy, Spain, Germany and England - and their owners (it's no coincidence that Silvio Berlusconi called for a European super-league at the same time Milan failed to qualify for the Champions League).

I think we wouldn't have seen such a dominance by the Premier League (in the Noughties) and Primera Division (now). Champions League winners and finalists in the past 15 years were mostly English, Spanish, Italian and German teams. So if the old system had been retained, some clubs in smaller leagues probably would have had their fair share of winning the Champions League - I'm thinking of Olympique Lyon, Porto, Benfica, Ajax, Spartak or Zenith St. Petersburg here.

Likewise, the UEFA Cup would have been much, much more popular than the Euro League is now, especially with Premier League clubs. Arsenal, Liverpool, Milan, Borussia Dortmund, but also Barca, Real, ManUnited and Chelsea would have been UEFA cup regulars.

As the OTL Champions League has basically become a cash-cow for the dominating clubs, there might have been more competition on the national level.
 
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