EXPLANATOR
Which teams are playing and what is the league format? What are the new rules? Al Jazeera explains.
The main round of the new UEFA Champions League season will begin in September.
The draw for this larger, modified tournament will take place on Thursday in Monaco, but it will not be the same as in previous years (at least not entirely).
This is how the next season will unfold:
How many teams will participate in the Champions League?
The updated version of the Champions League will see 36 clubs take part in the main round of the competition, an increase from 32 in the previous format.
There is an extra place for the fifth-best European league according to UEFA's rankings, meaning France's Ligue 1 now has three automatic qualifiers.
In addition, there is one extra place for each of the two leagues with the highest qualification coefficient from last season in UEFA competition, which this year are Germany and Italy.
The remaining extra spot goes to a national champion who emerges from the qualifying rounds.
League stage line-up!#UCLdraw | #UCL image.twitter.com/yFs5uipkfQ
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) August 28, 2024
What is the format of the new Champions League group stage?
Since 2003, the Champions League has featured 32 clubs divided into eight groups of four, with the top two in each section advancing to the round of 16.
That has changed radically and, starting this season, the 36 clubs will be grouped into one league in a “Swiss system”, more commonly associated with chess.
Previously, participating teams played six matches in the group stage, facing each opponent home and away. Now, clubs will have eight matches each, one against their eight opponents.
How does the new group system work?
The 36 teams will be divided into four pots of nine seeds. Each club will play against two teams from each pot, one at home and one away.
No team will face another club from the same national league and each club may only face a maximum of two teams from each country.
In previous years, the group stage ended in December, but the expansion of the Champions League means that the two additional rounds will be played in January.
How many matches will be played in the group stage?
The number of matches increases from 96 in the old group stage to 144 in the new league phase.
✨ UEFA Champions League all-time top scorer ✨
🏆 Register #UCL Golden Boot in seven different seasons
🏆 Record of 17 goals in a single campaign
🏆 Record of 140 goals in 183 games
@Christian He will receive a special award from UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin this week in Monaco!— UEFA (@UEFA) August 27, 2024
How will the draw work?
Instead of a manual draw, UEFA will now operate a hybrid draw.
Each of the 36 teams will still be drawn manually, going through the four qualifying pots from top to bottom, but instead of drawing their opponents manually, this will now be done digitally and will take just over a second per team.
Once the team is manually selected, the software will choose the opponents and where the teams will play: home or away.
How will teams qualify for the knockout stage?
The 36 clubs will qualify together in a league and the top eight will advance to the round of 16, but the format of the competition from then on will remain the same.
However, a classification will be made taking into account the positions in the league phase.
In addition, a playoff round will be introduced where teams finishing ninth to 24th in the league phase will go through to a two-legged play-off to decide the remaining places in the round of 16. These play-offs will be based on seeding.
CONFIRMED: #UCLdraw boats for the league phase ✅ image.twitter.com/hlVrDh7Hvt
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) August 28, 2024
What are the dates for the Champions League group stage?
- Matchday 1: September 17, 18, 19, 2024
- Matchday 2: October 1-2, 2024
- Matchday 3: October 22, 23, 2024
- Matchday 4: November 5-6, 2024
- Matchday 5: November 26-27, 2024
- Matchday 6: December 10, 11, 2024
- Day 7: January 21, 22, 2025
- Matchday 8: January 29, 2025
Can the last-placed teams qualify for the Europa League?
No. The bottom 12 teams in the league stage will simply be eliminated.
What else is new?
Each of UEFA's three men's club competitions will now have an “exclusive week” in which no matches from the other two competitions will be played that week.
For the Champions League, the exclusive week is the first round with matches to be played on 17, 18 and 19 September. The Europa League's first round is also on 25 and 26 September, while the Conference League's exclusive week is its final round of league phase matches on 19 December.
Will the prize money remain the same?
There is more money to distribute among the clubs involved in the Champions League's league phase – $2.6bn this season compared with $2.2bn in 2023-24 – although the new figure will be shared between 36 clubs rather than the previous 32.
