UEFA has confirmed how the Champions League (UCL) will look from the 2024-25 season, when it will move to a 36-team tournament.
It’s going to be a dramatic departure from what fans are used to, so here’s a full breakdown of what this means for football’s top club competition.
From next season, 36 clubs will take part in the Champions League and they will all be in one big league table. The old (current) format saw 32 clubs divided into eight groups of four teams.
There will still be a draw at start of the season, but only to create the league-phase fixtures: eight games for each club, four at home and four away.
The 36 teams will be divided into four pots of nine. Pot 1 will have the titleholders of the UCL and the eight clubs with the best coefficients. The champions of the top domestic leagues and the UEL titleholders will no longer be prioritised for Pot 1. Pots 2 to 4 are ordered on club coefficient.
Each club will be drawn to play two teams from each pot — one home, one away. So, unlike in the current format, a club in Pot 1 will play a game against two other clubs from Pot 1.
As a general rule, clubs from the same association will not be drawn against each other. However, to avoid deadlocking, the leagues with four or more clubs could play one match against another team from the same country.
From the final table, the top eight go direct to the round of 16. Positions nine to 24 will enter a playoff to earn the other eight places in the round of 16.
Positions 25 to 36 are eliminated from Europe. There is no country protection in any of the knockout rounds.
Unlike in previous seasons, there is no drop down of teams from the Champions League to the Europa League after the league phase. Once eliminated, your European season is over.
There will be only one knockout-round draw for the round of 16 onwards, with teams seeded based upon their final league-phase position and no country protection.
It means it’s important where you finish in the table; the higher you are, the more favourable knockout route you will have -on paper at least.
SOURCE: ESPN