The New Champions League Format Explained
The UEFA Champions League as we know it together with its sister competitions, the UEFA Europa League and the UEFA conference league is facing a major change in the format of the competition as announced by the the governing body. While change is constant and often hard to take, the new format seems to be exciting and promises more action packed games. Below we’ll explain the competitions new format in a simple way.
The 2023/2024 season marked the last time we saw the Champions League played on a group stage basis,from the new season ie 2024/2025 the competitions format has been changed to a league format to accommodate more teams and provide more exciting matches to the fans.
There will no longer be 32 teams in the in the UCL but instead the competition will be made up of 36 teams all competing in a league format. Making space for extra four slots to teams entering the competition.
For the draws, there will be four pots let’s say pots A,B,C,D. During the draw ceremony, each team will be made play face two teams from each of the four pots, playing one team home and the other away from the teams drawn from each pot. Bringing the total number each teams will face to 8. Playing four matches at home and the other four matches away.
With three points awarded for a win and a point awarded for a draw while none for a loss. Each point counts and will help in determining a teams final standings on the 36 team league table. we’re more likely to be seeing high profile matches early on in the competition instead of later in the competition from the previous format.
Heading into the knockout phases, the top 8 teams qualify directly into the knockout phases. While teams ranked from 9 to 24 on the league table will participate in a two legged playoff tie in order to secure their path to the round of 16.
With teams finishing 25 and below being eliminated from the competition entirely and will not be joining the Europa League either.This format also applying to the Europa League and the UEFA conference league.
Now there’s a plot twist to the match days with the introduction of what we call exclusive week. For the champions league exclusive week, matches will be played on Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday with no matches from the other club competitions being played that week.
For the Europa League exclusive week, matches will be played on Wednesday and Thursday while for the conference league exclusive week matches will be played on Thursday. For the last match day, all matches will take place simultaneously.
The UEFA Champions League and the Europa League will be played between September and January while the Conference league will take place between September and December.