What is the new UEFA Champions League 2024-25?
With the growing conflict between the European Football Association on the one hand, and Europe’s top clubs for the European Super League project, which does not seem to pay off well in terms of the continental and local federations, and even the International Federation, a new system has been proposed for the European Champions League, the most important tournament at the club level.
Therefore, a new system for the championship was introduced, to be implemented starting from the 2024-2025 season, that is, in the next edition of the competition.
In the following lines, we show you the new system of the Champions League 2024-2025, how to participate in it, and the most prominent differences between it and the current system of the tournament.
What is the current system of the UEFA Champions League?
As it is known, the current system starts from selecting a certain number of seats from each European country and accordingly the teams are placed according to the international classification of the teams. For example, the five major leagues, according to the classifications of their country’s national teams, are given the maximum capacity of representation, which is 4 teams in each copy.
The rest of the countries graduate their nominated teams, but with the entry of certain levels to qualify for the group stage of the European Champions League, and based on the roles of the qualifying supplements, the teams that will accompany the direct qualifiers to the European Champions League groups are known.
Finally, the 32 teams that make up the European Champions League groups will be divided into 8 groups. The teams of each group will play two matches with each other in a home-and-away system, and the first and second places will qualify for the second round (round of 16).
After that, a lottery is held and the competing teams are determined, with the exception of the teams from the same country in the direct confrontations, and a draw for the quarter-finals, with an explanation of the semi-final path, and then the final match will be held.
The knockout stages consist of two matches with a home and return system, and the team with the highest number of goals in the two matches qualifies, regardless of the difference in goals scored outside the home, according to the latest amendments.
What is the new system for the 2024-2025 UEFA Champions League?
UEFA made a decision to increase the number of teams participating in the Club World Cup to 36 teams, instead of 32 teams reaching the group stage.
UEFA also approved the approach to distributing seats, as the decision was taken based on a set of objective measures and criteria that determined the number of participants from each country, the mechanism of participation, the system of promotion in the tournament and access to the subsequent roles.
What is the new participation system in the 2024-2025 UEFA Champions League? What are the participating teams?
The new system of the Champions League will witness the participation of 36 clubs in total, which will be divided as follows.
32 teams qualify according to current data as usual.
– 4 additional seats to be determined based on the following criteria:
One seat for the club that occupies the third position in the fifth-ranked country in Continent.
– One seat for the club that won its country’s league by increasing the number of clubs qualified through the “Champions Path” from 4 to 5.
– Two final seats for the associations whose clubs achieve the best collective results in the previous season (the total number of points obtained divided by the number of participating clubs).
Champions League New Format Starting From 2024-2025 edition. pic.twitter.com/YSIyQtNAYC
— Football Talk (@FootballTalkHQ) May 12, 2022
The tournament is held according to the group system, with the general arrangement of the 36 participating teams, and accordingly, the path of these teams in the tournament is determined.
The owners of positions from the first to the eighth qualify directly for the second round of the Champions League, while the owners of the positions from 9 to 24 go through a supplement to the home and return system to determine the 8 teams participating in the second round along with the eight finalists.
The tournament is then conducted as normal, starting with the Round of 16 as is the system followed at the moment while the teams placed 24th to 36th are eliminated from the tournament altogether.