Quote Originally Posted by rastaman70 View Post
the winner is always granted a place in the CL now.
It always did. If the CL winner finished below the CL places, they would qualify at the expenses of the last team, like in Spain in 2000:

1999–2000 La Liga - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The story in 2005 was exceptional in that the FA didn't want Liverpool to qualify in place of Everton in fear of conflicts. Everton had already been barred from Europe in 1985 because of the ban on Liverpool that got extended to all English teams. Merseyside derby would become hot.