New look for the Champions League starting from 2024/2025

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UEFA began coordinating with key stakeholders in Europe after a meeting on 19 April which was made up of the European Club Association (ECA) Governing Council and the UEFA Club Competitions Committee for changing UEFA format

UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin said: “These changes make any team want to participate in the UEFA Champions League thanks to the results obtained on the pitch and will allow everyone in European football to survive, thrive, and grow in the long-term.

The new format will lead to competition in marketing and watching the best European teams play against each other early in the tournament

After its meeting on April 19, 2021, the UEFA Executive Committee revealed the pivotal change in the reforms, which is a departure from the opening group stage of the current 32-team format. The current Champions League season begins with the participation of participants into eight groups of four.

Complementing developments from the 2024/25 season, there will be one league made up of all 36 competing clubs. This will give four more teams the opportunity to compete against the best clubs in Europe.

The new change makes the team play matches against 10 different teams, half of them at home and a half away. This gives clubs an opportunity to test themselves against a larger group of opponents – and increases the likelihood that fans will see top teams competing more often early in the competition. The new format should mean there is more to play until the last night of the league.

Tournament system:
Qualification for the UEFA Champions League will continue to be open and dependent on the club’s last place in the previous season’s domestic league competition. Four additional slots available in 2024/25 will be allocated according to three different criteria:

Criterion 1: One of the additional places will go to the club that is ranked third in the Federation Championship and fifth in the UEFA National League classification.
The second criterion: The other champion will be awarded to the local champion by increasing the number of eligible clubs from four to five via the so-called “Champions Track”.
Third Criterion Fourth: Awarded to the two clubs with the highest club coefficients that have not automatically qualified for the Champions League stage, but have qualified for either the Champions League qualification stage or the Europa League/European League (scheduled to start) in 2021/22 season.

Three points will be applied for a win and one point for a draw.

In the Round of Sixteen, the top eight teams will automatically qualify for the Round of Sixteen, and those teams ranked between the nine and twenty-four will enter a play-off. Those who finished between ninth and sixteenth places will be seeded in the playoffs draw, meaning they will face a team 17 to 24 – with home advantage in the second leg. Teams ranked 25th or below, without reaching the UEFA Europa League, will be disqualified.

The eight clubs that win the play-offs will then advance to the Round of 16 where they will each face one of the top eight teams.

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