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🧮 New Champions League format
From the 2024/25 season, the UEFA Champions League is changing. The competition is making a switch from the traditional format, which involved an initial 8 groups of 4 teams (a total of 32 teams) before progressing to the knockout rounds, to a 36-team tournament which instead consists of a single league competition, in which all competing clubs are ranked together.
This article will cover everything you need to know about the change and what it means for the competition going forward.
❓ Why is the format changing?
Football is always evolving and tournaments like the Champions League are a perfect example of that evolution. Existing since 1955, Europe’s prime club football competition has undergone various changes and tweaks from the format to the number of clubs involved to how clubs can qualify for the tournament.
These changes are part of the natural growth of the game, they are intended to improve the competition and create more exciting games by increasing the level of jeopardy involved and including more teams within the competition.
The change in format will allow fans to see an even greater amount of elite European matches, as well as seeing those matches take place much earlier in the competition.
📈 What is changing?
The most notable change to avid watchers of the UEFA Champions League will be in the group stage. This was traditionally 32 teams split into 8 groups of 4 with the top 2 teams in each group progressing to the knockout stages, the third-placed team dropping into the Europa League and the bottom placed side being eliminated.
This format is being completely remodelled, there will now be 4 additional teams, and all 36 will compete in what will be known as the ‘Champions League league phase’ – replacing the group stage. All the teams will be placed in the same ‘league’ which is intended to produce bigger matchups in the initial stages of the competition, they will be ranked into 4 seeding pots based on their domestic league position and UEFA coefficient score. Each team will be drawn to play two teams from each of these pots culminating in 8 games for each team instead of the 6 games teams played in the old format.
The league phase works in the same way a traditional domestic league would, teams are awarded 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss. The teams that finish in the top 8 of this league phase will automatically progress through to the round of 16, while the teams that finish in 9th-24th place will have to play a two-legged knockout tie to secure their path to the knockout stages. Teams that finish in 25th or lower are eliminated from UEFA competition and do not drop down to the Europa League.
The teams that finish in 9th-16th in the league phase will be seeded to play a side that finish in 17th-24th in the knockout round before the round of 16, with the advantage coming for the higher placed teams by playing the second leg at home – which has traditionally been a consistent advantage. Another important detail to note is that the away goals rule is not returning with this new format.
The 8 winners of the play-off ties will then progress to the round of 16 where they will face one of the top 8 finishers in the league phase. The matchups for the knockout phases will partly be determined on where teams finished in the league phase in a move UEFA hopes will ‘strengthen the synergy between the league and knockout phases’.
From the round of 16 onwards, the competition is the same – two-legged knockout ties through the quarter finals, semi-finals and eventually a one-off meeting in the final. The draw to the final is pre-mapped out as it is in other UEFA competitions like the European Championship.
🪜 What does this mean for the tournament?
This change in format means we are more likely to see some of the bigger sides face off in the group stage, it’s also worth considering the increase in the number of teams and how the league phase will impact how many goals we see in games. In theory, this format will add extra incentive for sides – especially those battling towards the bottom of the league phases – which should translate to more exciting games right from the beginning of the competition as opposed to the old system which can produce some stale games if the group is already decided by gameweek 3.
It also means more games; we’ll still see Champions League matches played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in between domestic league action but there will have to be some extra gameweeks thrown in to accommodate the increase in teams and number of games played during the group stage. These extra weeks are being classified as ‘Champions League exclusive weeks’ where we won’t see any other UEFA competitions such as the Europa League and the Europa Conference League being played, with an extra Champions League matchup taking place on Thursday during the exclusive week as well as the usual Tuesday and Wednesday games.
Other UEFA competitions are also adopting these changes, there will be similar league phases for the Europa League and the Conference League with both competitions also involving 36 games in the initial league phase.
Summary
UEFA are adapting their structure with the goal of creating bigger European matchups earlier in the competition, while also introducing a new level of jeopardy for teams by placing them in one big league phase, this should incentivise teams to go for crucial points to prevent elimination.
Fans will see more games and potentially more goals with a unique league system designed to produce the best games and a competitive balance between all 36 teams, before continuing with the traditional knockout phases of the tournament which will no longer see sides drop down to other UEFA competitions, but instead be eliminated from all European competition.
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