Champions League 2024 / 25

[sir roger]

As well as the format changing, the tv coverage appears to be different going forward, with BBC having highlights on the Wednesdays at 10pm on i-player and 10.40pm on BBC1. The first choice of live games on Tuesdays will be on Amazon Prime with TNT having everything else.  

[Kevin D]

I think I'll swerve this:

 

New Champions League format explained: How the tournament will work from the 2024-25 season - BBC Sport

 

Football is always evolving and Europe's most prestigious competition, the Champions League, is no different.

 

From this season, a new format will be in play after Uefa approved the changes in May 2022.

It is the first time since 1992 that Europe's elite competition has seen such a revamp.

Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin said qualification will be "based on sporting merit".

How to follow the Champions League on the BBC

The BBC will show highlights of the Champions League this season.

 

For the next three years, from 22:00 BST on the Wednesday of Champions League matchweeks, there will be match-by-match highlights available on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app - plus a highlights show on BBC One at 22:40.

 

There will also be clips online and on social media, as well as live text commentary for all matchweeks on the BBC Sport website.

What is the new Champions League format and how does it work?

The Champions League group stage is currently set up with 32 teams in eight groups of four - with the top two sides from those groups qualifying for the last 16.

 

However, this format will be replaced by one league table where 36 clubs will participate in the new league phase - giving four more sides the chance to compete.

 

Clubs will no longer play three teams twice, but will take on eight different sides with four home games and four away games.

 

To determine fixtures, the teams will be ranked in four seeding pots and each team will then be drawn to play two opponents from each of these pots.

 

They will play one match against a team from each pot at home, and one away.

 

The draw for this season's group stage will take place on 29 August at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.

How will the knockout stages work?

Teams who finish in the top eight will qualify automatically for the last 16, while those who place ninth to 24th will compete in a two-legged knockout play-off for the chance to join them.

 

Whoever finishes 25th or lower will be eliminated and will not be entered into the Europa League.

 

From the last 16 onwards, the Champions League will continue to follow its existing format with the final taking place at a neutral venue.

How many more games will be played and when will they be played?

The number of matches in the new format will increase from 125 to 189.

 

Each team will play a minimum of eight - instead of six - and a maximum of 17.

 

In standard weeks, Champions League matches will still be played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

 

In the Champions League exclusive weeks - when no other European competitions are played - games will be played across Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

The league phase will now end at the end of January instead of during December.

How many Premier League teams will be in Champions League?

For Premier League clubs, the top four go into the Champions League with the fifth-placed team going into the Europa League.

That means Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Aston Villa will be in the elite club knockout competition in 2024-25.

Fifth-placed Tottenham had to settle for the Europa League, along with FA Cup winners Manchester United. Chelsea will be in the Conference League.

How do the coefficient places work?

Germany and Italy are the nations to have secured a fifth automatic spot in this season's tournament.

The coefficient places, otherwise known as 'European Performance Spots', go to the associations who have the best collective performance by their clubs in the previous season.

Italy will have five representatives in Europe's premier competition after Atalanta won the Europa League.

The winners of both tournaments qualify automatically for the following season’s Champions League.

What are the rules on squads for Uefa competitions?

After the summer transfer window closes, each club competing in any Uefa competition must submit two lists of players.

 

On 'List A', clubs can submit a maximum of 25 players, with eight places reserved exclusively for "locally trained players", also known as homegrown players.

 

These eight must be made up of at least four "club-trained" players and a maximum of four "association-trained" players.

 

According to Uefa regulations, players who meet the "club trained" criteria have to have been on the club's books, irrespective of the player's nationality and age, for at least three years between the ages of 15 and 21.

An "association-trained" player is someone that has played in the same country as the club they are currently at for three years, irrespective of the player's nationality, between the ages of 15 to 21.

 

On 'List B', a club can register an unlimited number of players for the 2024-25 season as long as they are born on or after 1 January 2003.

 

The 'List A' squads for the 36 Champions League league phase contenders must be submitted by 23:00 BST on Tuesday, 3 September, while 'List B' players must be submitted no later than 23:00 BST the day before each match.

Uefa also states that a player who has played during any of the qualifying rounds prior to the group stage of the Champions League, Europa League or Conference League can play in those competitions for another club from the league phase.

Who has qualified for Champions League group stages?

England: Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Aston Villa

Spain: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Girona, Atletico Madrid

Italy: Inter Milan, AC Milan, Juventus, Atalanta, Bologna

Germany: Bayer Leverkusen, Stuttgart, Bayern Munich, RB Leipzig, Borussia Dortmund

France: Paris St-Germain, Monaco, Brest

Netherlands: PSV Eindhoven, Feyenoord

Portugal: Sporting Lisbon, Benfica

Belgium: Club Bruges

Scotland: Celtic

Austria: Sturm Graz

Ukraine: Shakhtar Donetsk

The final seven slots will be determined via qualifying.

How has the Champions League format changed over the years?

Europe's most notable football competition began during the 1955-56 season as only a six-team invitational tournament, initially known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup.

 

From 1967, the competition grew to 32 teams, was called the European Cup and featured four two-legged rounds prior to a single-match final - this model would last for more than 20 years.

 

The Champions League as we know it began in 1992.

 

A group stage was added with the last 16 entering a knockout phase.

 

There was a brief spell with two group stages, but this was reverted back to the single group-stage format for the 2003-04 tournament.

Are the Europa League and Europa Conference League going to change too?

Yes. Both competitions will see similar changes to those of the Champions League.

The Europa League will follow the same format as the Champions League from next season.

Europe's third-tier competition, the Europa Conference League, will be rebranded as the Uefa Conference League and teams will play six matches against six different opponents in the league phase.

Both the Europa League and Conference League will also feature 36 teams.

 

[Jairzinho]

I've no idea how the new format works and I can't be bothered to find out. Guessing it'll be fucking shite.

[Mook]

They fucked Football in 1992 & we are approaching the nadir at light speed now.

[an tha]

A 'league' where teams do not play the same teams is fucking ridiculous.

[Spy Bee]

25 minutes ago, an tha said:

A 'league' where teams do not play the same teams is fucking ridiculous.

Yeah, I am genuinely pissed off with it. Some cunts sat in a room and basically said "fuck the fans, they'll take what they're given and just give us more money".

 

The elastic has got to snap for these fuckers to think about listening.

[Binomial]

2 hours ago, Jairzinho said:

I've no idea how the new format works and I can't be bothered to find out. Guessing it'll be fucking shite.

 

Pretty simple.

 

36 teams in a league, each team drawn to play 4 games at home and 4 teams away. 8 different teams. 1st-8th automatically qualify to last 16 where the other 8 will be decided by play offs between those that finished 9th-25th.

 

The best thing about it is no more finishing 3rd in any group and dropping down to the Europa. Once you're out....you're out.

[an tha]

20 minutes ago, Spy Bee said:

Yeah, I am genuinely pissed off with it. Some cunts sat in a room and basically said "fuck the fans, they'll take what they're given and just give us more money".

 

The elastic has got to snap for these fuckers to think about listening.

It is absolute bollocks.

 

They'll argue that teams play teams from same pots - but there is a world of difference in what can draw.

 

For example Leverkusen and Bruges are both in Pot 2 - the difference between those two is fucking massive.

 

It is a farce.

 

 

[bizzle10]

I take it the more games means more revenue for clubs must be UEFA way of fighting off the super league cartel

[AngryOfTuebrook]

2 hours ago, Mook said:

They fucked Football in 1992 & we are approaching the nadir at light speed now.

It's shit.  The way to improve it is to make it more genuinely competitive, but that would mean a return to big teams getting knocked out, so we can't have that, can we?

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Here's my proposal...

 

However you work out the ranking to get the 64 best teams in Europe (say, top 2 from the big five leagues, champions of the next tier of leagues - Portugal , Austria, etc. - plus qualifying rounds for the champions of the small leagues) and seed them into two pots, for a straight knockout round.  The winners of that are drawn into 8 groups of 4. Group winners go into the Quarter Final and everyone else fucks off home.

[polymerpunkah]

50% increase in matches.

 

Money money money.

[VladimirIlyich]

It's wank. I'd rather be in the Europa or whatever its called. If fans want action they need to stay away from games and deny these twats the revenue.

[lifetime fan]

5 hours ago, VladimirIlyich said:

It's wank. I'd rather be in the Europa or whatever its called. If fans want action they need to stay away from games and deny these twats the revenue.

They’ve fucked around with that too.

[suzy]

This sounds shite as everyone says. The only good thing is highlights on the BBC.

[Pete]

12 hours ago, Jairzinho said:

I've no idea how the new format works and I can't be bothered to find out. Guessing it'll be fucking shite.

This.  

[Vincent Vega]

I reckon we will have a fully sanctioned UEFA run Super League in the next 10 years. Two divisions of 18 clubs, though I’m not sure the top clubs will get their way on automatic entry. Probably a secondary competition to run alongside for the clubs that don’t get into the Super League option.

[VladimirIlyich]

5 hours ago, lifetime fan said:

They’ve fucked around with that too.

Oh great!

[coachpotato]

Football will eat itself eventually.

[Lee909]

Reckon this will end up with a shitload of dodgy fixtures and corruption. Teams that need a draw in the last game playing out 0-0 as it will put out rivals from qualifying or teams resting players for the same reasons. It's going to be dodgy as fuck. As will the fixtures of who you draw

[an tha]

14 hours ago, Lee909 said:

Reckon this will end up with a shitload of dodgy fixtures and corruption. Teams that need a draw in the last game playing out 0-0 as it will put out rivals from qualifying or teams resting players for the same reasons. It's going to be dodgy as fuck. As will the fixtures of who you draw

It is nuts that you can be positioned in same league table playing totally different sets of fixtures.

 

I mean FFS.

 

There can be a huge difference in the quality of the 2 sides you pull from each pot - and then add in you don't even play them all home and away - you play 1 home, 1 away - Each team will be drawn against two different teams from each pot, playing one team at home and one away....

 

 

[Bobby Hundreds]

15 hours ago, coachpotato said:

Football will eat itself eventually.

The whole world is. Football just has peoples attention. 

[Code]

In the format we are used to , we got a lot of dead rubber games where the top teams rested a lot of players.

 

Maybe this new format will put an end to that?

 

I have not looked at it enough to say anything for sure, maybe it will be even worse than before, but I hope not.

 

We will know more after the draw. 

[Smell The Glove]

28 minutes ago, Code said:

In the format we are used to , we got a lot of dead rubber games where the top teams rested a lot of players.

 

Maybe this new format will put an end to that?

 

I have not looked at it enough to say anything for sure, maybe it will be even worse than before, but I hope not.

 

We will know more after the draw. 

The new format will give plenty of teams chance to rest players simply because 24 teams can qualify. If you are 13th with 2 games to go with no chance of 8th and no chance of 25th does it really matter if you finish 11th or 16th? Similarly if your 4th with no chance of 1st or 9th what does it matter if you are 3rd, 4th or 5th? Certain games might mean something for one team but nothing for another I reckon in quite a number of games. It's just a really shit format because 24 out of 36 qualify, there are bound to be games that don't mean a great deal for at least 1 team towards the end.

[Joey8FrogsLegs]

It’s shit, and it’s only designed to generate more money.

 

UEFA is a monopolistic and corrupt organization, just like FIFA, that has managed to establish a position where they can do what they want more or less. The whole thing really is sickening.