UEFA have today officially announced the new approved format of European competitions that will come into place as of the 2024-25 season.
On their official website, UEFA have explained how the new format will look for the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League, which will now actually be a ‘league’ system rather than being divided into groups of four as before.
Taking the total number of teams from 32 to 36 in the UEFA Champions League, the biggest change will see a transformation from the traditional group stage to a single league phase including all participating teams.
Every club will now be guaranteed a minimum of 8 league stage games against 8 different opponents (four home games, four away) rather than the previous six matches against three teams, played on a home-and-away basis.
The top eight sides in the league will qualify automatically for the knockout stage, while the teams finishing in ninth to 24th place will compete in a two-legged play-off to secure their path to the last 16 of the competition.
Similar format changes will also be applied to the UEFA Europa League (8 matches in the league stage) and UEFA Europa Conference League (6 matches in the league stage) and both will also include 36 teams in the league phase.
Format sucks compared to the current one, less jeopardy, more pointless matches and spaces for teams coming 5th in domestic leagues. Whole thing is a joke but hey, someone’s got to get their Super League somehow. At least the teams can’t qualify based on name alone.
more matches = more money for uefa
super league>>
Dont like this at all.
It’s a good decision. It will benefit football for a long term as it will give small clubs exposure to Elite football and elevate their game somewhat. Yes, for the first few years the UCL won’t be as entertaining as it is now because of a few extra matches that are against weak teams.
But on a long run,..Smaller league teams will have incentive to look for more talent to do better in UCL and eventually get stronger, upsets will start happening, things are gonna get entertaining.
Instead of a superleague monopolized by a small number of rich clubs that would completely shut growth of smaller clubs and smaller leagues, I would prefer widespread development of football throughout the whole of Europe.
Yes UEFA is corrupted, but is Superleague gonna be better? Fuck NO. Superleague is gonna be even worse and destructive for Football in the long run.
The franchise bullshit works in USA because their braindead sports (Basketball/Baseball/NFL) isn’t watched by anyone outside of USA. They NEEEDED those sports to be franchised or else they would die out. Same goes for Cricket. It will die if it’s not franchised so, India is up to it.
Football never needed to be franchised, it has enough fans all around the world to keep it alive.
Superleague is not the solution.
Solution is to empower smaller clubs to get competitive so big names don’t get a free pass in the group stage. I think UEFA is on the right track there.
This format sucks. How are games picked. I can already see teams like RM and Barcelona getting drawn against 8 minnows. Super league is needed now more than ever.
A closed and egotistical super league that would only feature specific big name clubs should be fought with every thinkable means available and if those clubs were to end up abandoning or going up against uefa starting such league they would all deserve to get banned entirely from their home leagues and international teams etc.
A club like milan who has always praised itself as being a morally ethical simply cant keep such image if they were to play in a closed league as it will only further the distcance between big and smaller teams.
Ha yeah like the CL is so credible and definitely gives a fair shake to all clubs. Say what you will but to act like UEFA and the CL care about competitive balance is way off base.
Also I would be over joyed if Milan inter and Juve all left serie a, the league would instantly fail and Italy would rid itself of the cancer that has destroyed Italian football.
I never said that cl was perfect but to have a closed league goes completely against the principles of sports as it would be more of a circus or a spectacle rather than a real competition where all clubs due to their performances can atleast fight to participate.
To have a closed league wont solve anything and will only cause a bigger financial gap between the rest of the clubs.
Such league is just the big clubs demanding more and more while feeling self entitled to get even more when the big clubs are infact those who has benefitted far the most partcipating in the cl. But now they want more yeah that is reallly sympathetical, right.
UEFA and FIFA are two (Olympics are the other) of the most corrupt Organizations in the world lol. To think they care about ALL teams is a joke. Profit is all they care about. Super League was not properly planned – but I understand the reasoning behind it and had it been executed properly it would have succeeded. Perhaps it will in the future. We will see.