UEFA have approved a new format for all club competitions from 2024-25 season onwards at an Executive Committee meeting held on Monday 19 April.
The new format would see the Champions League group stage expanded to 36 clubs, representing an increase of four teams on the 32 qualified clubs under the current format.
There will also no longer be eight groups of four teams in the group stage as the format changes to a single league with teams guaranteed a minimum of 10 league stage matches against 10 different opponents.
Five of those games would be held at home whilst the other five would be played away, thus replacing the current six match group stage against three teams on home and away basis.
At the conclusion of the new league stage, the top eight will qualify for the knockout stage whilst those sat ninth to 24th place will participate in a two-legged play-off in which the winners would qualify for the Last 16.
This format will also be adopted across the Europa League and upcoming UEFA Europa Conference League, with eight and six matches respectively in the league stages although discussion will take place about expanding both competitions to 36 teams for the league stage.
It has also been confirmed that qualification for the Champions League will continue to be transparent and earned through a team’s performance within various domestic competitions.
As for the extra placings, one of the additional places will go to the club ranked third in the league of the fifth-placed association within UEFA’S National Association Rankings.
One other place would be awarded to a domestic champion by extended the number of clubs qualifying from the Champions path from four teams to five.
The final two places will be judged on coefficiency across last five seasons and awarded to clubs with the highest club coefficient who have failed to qualify for the Champions League group stage yet participated in qualifying or other UEFA competitions.
Recognising the importance of the domestic club football calendar across Europe, UEFA clarified that the current scheduling format would still be applied with all games played in midweek except for the Final which will continue to be played on a weekend.
Speaking on the decision to approve the new format, UEFA President – Aleksander Ceferin iterated that this revamp will support the future of domestic football across the continent.
Ceferin also spoke of how this new format retains basic principles of competition, saying; “It retains the principle that domestic performance should be the key to qualification and reconfirms the principles of solidarity right through the game and of open competition.”
As the world of football continues to react to the news of a breakaway European Super League, Ceferin is confident that this shakeup can “… still keep alive the dream of any team in Europe to participate in the UEFA Champions League…”, as long as they deliver results on the pitch.
Ceferin also iterated his confidence that the new format can “… enable long-term viability, prosperity, and growth for everyone in European football, not just a tiny, self-selected cartel.
Further decisions however are yet to be made on details like match dates, coefficients, seeding system and finals format, which will all be finalised by the end of 2021 subject to further tweaks of this new format if necessary.
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