New Formatting for UEFA’s Club Competitions
By: Anthony Tazbaz
Image Credit: Janosch Diggelmann
Brace (and inform) yourselves supporters and viewers, we have new formats for UEFA’s club competitions!
In 2021, UEFA announced that the UEFA Champions League (UCL), UEFA Europa League (UEL) and UEFA Europa Conference League (UECL) would undergo changes to their respective competition format as of the 2024-25 season (next season). On March 6 2024, UEFA provided an update to the upcoming changes, which will include an additional four clubs participating in each competition.
UCL Structure
With the UCL expanding from 32 to 36 clubs, participating clubs will begin competing in the league phase, formerly the group stage. In this new format, clubs will play against eight clubs once (four home, four away), thereby replacing the home-away format — six matches overall — against three clubs drawn in the same group.
With the draw to the expiring competition format consisting of one club picked from each pot — pots one to four — the eight-club matchup format will comprise two clubs from each pot, which will enable better competition among clubs of varying quality and further Euro-wide integration. For instance, players from clubs in eastern Europe will have the chance to play against clubs from Europe’s top five leagues at a higher frequency, which would increase their chances at defeating a European heavyweight and make club history.
The rankings will be based on overall UCL standings, rather than the expiring UCL group standings rule. To qualify for the UCL knockout stage, clubs finishing in overall positions one to eight will receive a bye to the round of 16, whereas clubs placed from ninth to 24th will be paired with another club to compete in a two-legged knockout phase playoff. The eight winners will qualify for the round of 16, whereas the eight losers will be eliminated from contention for a continental title.
Clubs ranked 25th to 36th crash out of the tournament, like the fourth-place clubs in the expiring format.
As a result of this new format, the promotion-relegation system between the UCL and UEL and the UEL and UECL will be scrapped for the foreseeable future.
Then, the competition will proceed as usual with two-legged series in the round of 16, quarterfinals and semifinals on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and a one-match final scheduled on a Saturday.
As well, the UEL and UECL will undergo similar changes to their respective competitions’ formats. Clubs participating in UEL will also play eight matches against eight different opponents during the league phase, followed by an identical knockout phase that includes a playoff round for clubs ranked between ninth and 24th.
In UECL, despite containing 36 clubs, participating clubs will play six matches against six different opponents during the league phase. The rankings and qualifications for the knockout stage remain unchanged from their counterparts. The competition will also change its official name, from UEFA Europa Conference League to UEFA Conference League.
Schedule Format
The competitions’ schedules will differ, albeit only slightly. UCL and UEL matches will be played between September and January , replacing the expiring competitions’ group stages ending in December. However, the schedule for UECL matches remains unchanged, with matches taking place between September and December.
As well, each of the three UEFA club competitions will have one exclusive matchweek whereby the two other competitions will not play matches, thus allowing supporters to solely focus on the competition at hand. During their exclusive week of action, UCL matches will be played on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; the UEL matches will occur on Wednesday and Thursday; and the UECL matches will take place on Thursday.
Four Additional Clubs in the UCL
Despite a new format, qualification to UEFA’s club competitions remains contingent on clubs’ rankings from the previous season. Against this backdrop, some clubs will also qualify based on their association’s coefficient ranking — ranked by nation and league in which they play — from the previous season. The coefficient ranking is a classification based on clubs’ performances and, for qualifying purposes, helps determine the association worthy of having an extra slot available for a club’s qualification to a UEFA club competition. For instance, England is currently in the lead for association club coefficients by nation with 101.55 points.
The four additional clubs’ participation will also be based on the association club coefficient rankings. For instance, one slot will be allocated to the club ranked third in the domestic league belonging to the association ranked fifth in the UCL access list, which is based on the aforementioned club coefficient rankings.
In this case, based on the current rankings, AS Monaco would receive automatic qualification due to France’s Ligue 1 holding fifth place in the ranking and Monaco ranked currently third place in the league’s standings. In the expiring format, third place in Ligue 1 would have to qualify through UCL qualifiers.
The second additional qualification will be awarded to a domestic champion from a lower-ranked European league. This will be achieved by adding one available slot — from four to five slots — dedicated to clubs qualifying via the qualifiers. The qualifiers will consist of four qualifying rounds, with certain league winners awarded a bye to the latter rounds of the qualifying process. As a result, this extra slot increases the chances of an additional club from a lower ranked league playing in Europe’s elite competition.
Lastly, slots three and four will go to clubs from two associations that boast the strongest collective performance by their clubs during the previous season. In essence, this allocation will draw on the association club coefficient from the previous season and divide the total number of coefficient points obtained by clubs participating in UEFA club competitions by the number of participating clubs, which results in the season country coefficients rankings.
This year, in the UCL, Italy lead the country coefficients rankings with the highest average number of coefficient points (116.00 points/7 clubs = 16.57 averag points); Germany sit not too far behind in second (108.50 points/7 clubs = 15.50 average points). This means that the fourth-place club for both Serie A and Bundesliga — which are currently Bologna FC and Borussia Dortmund, respectively — will qualify automatically for the UCL league phase.
A similar principle will be applied to qualification for the UEL and UECL.
The Good and The Bad
After assessing the new formats and providing an in-depth explanation, below are positives and negatives of the newly formatted competitions. The positives and negatives reflect the views on the author.
The positives include:
balanced pot structure, with two clubs from each pot being drawn into a group;
competition better integrated among clubs across Europe and various quality levels;
increased chances of upsets by smaller clubs against larger clubs;
more revenue for clubs, with four additional participating clubs receiving lucrative prize money;
every match being crucial, given the overall rankings replacing group rankings;
more involved supporters and, therefore, more money;
three days of UCL action during their exclusive week.
The negatives include:
Players playing more matches, thereby increasing the risk of injury;
congested schedules;
increased pressure potentially leading to higher burnout rates among players and coaching staff.
Ultimately, despite initial skepticism, the positives of the re-formatting of UEFA’s club competitions outweigh the negatives. However, questions regarding players’ fitness will — and should — remain a primary concern above all positives, particularly following concerns about playing too many matches and physical exhaustion raised by players across the football world. We will see who is up to the challenge for a marathon-style season and how the players react to such changes.
Leave a comment below on your thoughts about the new formatting.
