Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- European soccer's governing body will decide on a plan today that doubles the revenue for teams vying for the UEFA Cup in what may be a final effort to overcome fading interest in the region's second-tier club championship.

UEFA will take over the sale of the 37-year-old tournament's broadcast rights, which had been handled by teams until the quarterfinal round. The event is overshadowed by the Champions League, which features the continent's top clubs.

Last season, the 40 teams appearing in the UEFA Cup's group stages shared 40.3 million euros ($59 million). That compares with a minimum of 588.6 million euros distributed to the 32 clubs competing in the Champions League. The lack of money means matches often don't feature first-team players as clubs rest them to concentrate on their domestic leagues. UEFA's executive committee meets today in Bordeaux to approve an overhaul that will also include a name change and a new format.

``The Champions League is a monster,'' said William Gaillard, an adviser to UEFA President Michel Platini. ``The Champions League created a problem so people started questioning the importance of the UEFA Cup.''

Until 1997, the Champions League was reserved for national league winners, while the best of the rest appeared in the UEFA Cup. Now as many as four teams from the Italian, Spanish and English leagues can qualify for the elite tournament, leaving the UEFA Cup lacking star appeal.

Last season, English team Bolton Wanderers sent a squad of second-team players to Lisbon for a round of 16 match and lost the two-game series 2-1. Coach Gary Megson said he wanted to rest players for the Premier League survival battle. Bolton escaped relegation to the second-tier Championship by one point.

Value Question

``A lot of people had fun following Bolton,'' said Richard McCormick, 48, who's supported the club for 30 years. ``But from a football point I don't think it's got much value -- all the top teams are in the Champions League.''

That's not going to change, Gaillard said, although UEFA is promising more revenue after centralizing the sale of broadcasting rights.

Everton, one of England's four entrants last season, played 10 games in the competition and made a profit of 2.5 million pounds ($4.6 million) from its run to the last 16, according to former Chief Executive Officer Keith Wyness. Average home crowds were down even though ticket prices were 10 pounds lower than the 30 pounds it charges for Premier League games.

Tarnished

``There's got to be more money in it to make it more attractive to teams and also to the sponsors,'' Wyness said in an interview. ``It's been tarnished. It's a branding issue and format issue and needs to be reworked.''

Selling the television rights centrally will mean the competition's winner taking ``something like one-fifth of what the Champions League winner will make,'' Gaillard said.

``At the moment it's something like one-tenth.''

Official figures show last year's champion Zenit St. Petersburg got around 5 million euros. Champions League winner Manchester United received 43 million euros.

U.K. free-to-air broadcaster Channel Five signed a 15 million-pound deal to broadcast the pick of the matches in Britain next season. ITV Plc, the largest U.K. commercial broadcaster, and Ireland-based Setanta Sports will carry the remainder.

Best Games

``The viewing figures will be better because we will be showing the best games and the fans know where they will be able to watch them,'' Robert Charles, Five's controller for sport, said in an interview.

Last season, Five's UEFA Cup coverage attracted between one and two million viewers. Champions League games attracted more than 5 million viewers.

From the 2009-2010 season the competition will resemble the Champions League, with 48 competing teams divided into 12 groups, before the top teams in each enter a draw to play two- match series against randomly chosen opponents, including eight third-place teams from the Champions League groups, UEFA said.

Should the ruling body's efforts to restore the event's image fail, it may go the way of other defunct European competitions such as the Cup Winners' Cup and the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup.

``We always monitor our competitions,'' Gaillard said. ``We will take a hard look when we discuss the 2012-2015 competitions.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Tariq Panja in London at tpanja@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: September 24, 2008 21:02 EDT