How Does the New UEFA Competition Format Work?

By WherestheMatch Team

Increase in Participating Clubs

The number of clubs participating in the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League will increase to 36, up from the present 32. For the Champions League, the extra four slots will be allocated to:

• The third-place club from the fifth ranked league in UEFA’s league access list.
• An additional domestic champion by increasing to five the number of clubs that qualify via the champion’s path.
• The final two slots are given based on collective performance and will be judged using UEFA’s club co-efficient ranking.

Group Stages

The largest change in the new UEFA competition format will occur in the group stages. Rather than the traditional play-off between 4 teams, the tournament has been altered to function as more of a league-type system.

Once the full 36-team roster has been decided, the clubs are then placed into a single league table. Each team will face 8 opponents, 4 at home and 4 away from home, with the final standings being decided by the classic football point scoring with 3 points given for a win, and 1 point given for a draw. Opponents are decided via a random draw from four different pots (into which teams are sorted based on sporting merit); each club will face two teams from each pot resulting in a wider range of opposition.

The eight top placed teams in the league after all the fixtures take place automatically qualify for the round of 16. For those placed between 9th and 16th, there will be a knock-out phase playoff where each team is drawn against a side that finished between 17th and 24th with the victor moving onto the round of 16 where they will face off against one of the eight top placed teams.

Knockout Stages

The rest of the competition will follow the traditional UEFA format. Teams will face each other twice – once home and once away – with the side that accumulates the better goal aggregate moving onto the next stage. Knockout rounds will still include the Round of 16, Quarter Finals (8 teams), Semi Finals (4 teams) and Finals.

New Champions League Format Vs Old

Most football fans would probably agree that there wasn’t really anything wrong with the old Champions League format. Some of the changes feel somewhat unnecessary, however, the additional team allocation will help teams from smaller European leagues make it to a larger stage, and the league format is likely to prove quite effective at preventing the occasional ‘group of death’ where for past tournaments multiple top sides were drawn into the same qualifying group. There’s also the element of matching top teams against each other earlier into the competition which will no doubt increase viewership and revenue for UEFA.

On the other hand, fixture pile-up (which is already a big talking point especially with managers) is likely to worsen further. The total number of games taking place in the tournament will increase to 189 from 125, with the finalists playing either 15 or 17 games (depending on where they place in the group stages) which is an increase from the current 13. Overall, the minimum increase in matches for each entrant rises by two from the current format. In fact, it will take nearly 150 matches to narrow the participating teams from 36 to 24 which you could cynically suggest would mean far more low-stakes fixtures played, especially later into the group stages when top & bottom placed teams are all but decided.

Overall, it does seem like the changes will have a net positive impact. The new group stage draws will look to level the playing field for some of the smaller teams while encouraging clashes between larger sides earlier into the competition – whether this actually results in exciting games is a different question though. We’re excited to see how this new structure impacts UEFA’s European tournaments going forward.