By Solomon Wise
August, 2024
The Champions League is changing for the 2024/25 season for the first time in 21 years from the number of teams, the structure of the competition and the means of qualification compared to the previous seasons as per a UEFA decision taken in May 2022.
Firstly, the number of teams competing will increase from 32 to 36 meaning there will be 189 played matches instead of 125 matches, and the group stage will now be replaced by a league phase also known as the Swiss model. Each qualified team will play eight matches in the league phase of which they will play four games at home and the other four games away.
The top eight teams in the league table will then qualify automatically for the knockout stage, with those finishing 9th-24th competing in a two-legged play-off to determine who will secure a spot in the last 16 of the competition. The bottom twelve teams in the league phase will eliminated from the competition with no access to the UEFA Europa League.
In the play-offs teams that finished between 9th-16th will be drawn to face a team which finished position 17th to 24th, the eight teams qualified in the knock phase play-offs will then progress to the round of 16 and will face one of the top eight finishers. From the round of 16 onwards, the competition will continue to follow its existing format of the knockout rounds.
The 36 teams come out of four seeding pots each pot having nine teams graded by each team’s UEFA club coefficient ranking by results in five years of European competitions. Each team will be drawn to play two opponents from each of the four pots, playing one match against a team from each pot both home and away thus resulting in more competitive matches for every club across the board. No club could play another team from their league during the league phase and a club could play not more than two teams from one country.
The format will also be applied to UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League. The Champions League and Europa League matches will be played between September and January (Tuesdays and Wednesdays), while the Europa Conference will be played between September and December (Thursdays). For the last match day of each of the league phases, all games will be played at the same time.
Many football fans across the world were left confused by the new UEFA format but with time I know many will understand it including me, what are your opinions on this new format?
Solomon Wise is a videographer with over 7 years of experience. When not writing on Respbet he works for various projects in graphics design and videography
