Reinhard Grindel, the president of the German FA (DFB), has urged the next UEFA president to work more closely with the European Club Association (ECA) and push forward Champions League reforms.
UEFA is currently without a president after FIFA's ethics committee gave Michel Platini a six-year ban from all football activity, which was later reduced to four by the Court Of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
UEFA is set to appoint a new president in September and then decide on changes to the Champions League format in December, with the governing body's director of competition, Giorgio Marchetti, telling The Associated Press in May that the matter was in the consulting stage.
Grindel, who was elected DFB president in April after Wolfgang Niersbach stepped down following the 2006 World Cup scandal, wants the new UEFA leader to strengthen the relationship with the ECA.
"In terms of content we have to work even harder so that UEFA and ECA have a close cooperation," he told kicker. "For instance, I am of the opinion that we should conduct the Champions League in a way that allows clubs from the smaller associations to knock on the door of the Champions League, but we have to condense the quality."
He said playing an additional preliminary round "could be an idea."
Earlier this month, ECA chairman and Bayern Munich CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said he wanted to increase the quality step by step by restricting access to the competition for the smaller nations.
In kicker, Grindel urged the next UEFA president to "intensify the dialogue with ECA, and especially that with chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge."
Grindel added that the DFB will also look at which of the two candidates, Aleksander Ceferin and Michael van Praag, in the UEFA presidential race "is open to our candidacy for the 2024 European Championships."
Grindel, a former MP for governing party CDU, added: "I don't miss Herr Platini."