Revolution Champions League: without group stage and with a ‘final four’ it would be the new format of the tournament

Even with the shadow of the Super League, the tournament that Real Madrid tried to promote along with other powerful clubs in Europe last year, UEFA gave the green light to the implementation of a new format of the Champions League starting in the 2024-25 season. The news became official this Monday, three weeks before the grand final between Madrid and Liverpool in Paris France.

“We are convinced that the chosen format will improve the competitive balance and generate solid income”said Aleksaner Caferin, president of UEFA about the change that the Champions League will have, a tournament that has been evolving over time. Between 1999 and 2003, for example, a league was played after the group stage and before the quarterfinals.. In 2018 there were also changes in which the Europa League also varied.

“What is this new format about?” Is the question asked by the world of football, while the highest European entity tries to explain that with this it seeks to continue prioritizing sporting merits to qualify. Therefore, below we explain point by point everything about what will be the birth of a new Champions.

equipment increase

The revolution includes the increase in participants from 32 to 36. Those four additional seats will be distributed as follows:

1) to the team that comes in third place in the league that is fifth in the UEFA ranking. Right now that position belongs to France’s Ligue 1, which for now gives the first two the chance to go to the Champions League.

2) Then, the second extra quota will come from the increase from four to five in the number of clubs that qualify through the “Champions Route”, which rewards the league champions in lower level associations.

3 and 4) The last two places will be for those leagues with better performance during the previous season; that is, those that finish in the first two places in the UEFA ranking. Today, the two best ranked are the Premier League and LaLiga, two competitions that would benefit from bringing more teams to the various European competitions.

Goodbye to the group stage

The most powerful change is in the extermination of the eight groups in the first phase. They go. Now the 36 teams would be joined in a kind of league, although each team will only face eight rivals (all different) in four first legs and four return matches. With this, six games will be played to eight.

The initial idea was to increase it to ten games, although both the Premier and LaLiga opposed it because they considered it excessive due to calendar issues and they believed that it took too much market share from the national leagues.

What has not yet been decided is how the pairings will be so that each team collides with another of different potential, as happens in chess with the so-called “Swiss system” on which the renewal has been based.

‘Final four’ in the final phase?

The final phase, which for many is the most interesting, will also undergo a variation. The first eight of that only table of positions would qualify for the round of 16 directly. And their rivals would come out of the tie that will be accessed by 16 teams (from the new to the twenty-fourth).

Then the round of 16 and therefore the quarterfinals will be played. In the semifinals, another dilemma: whether to play with the traditional system (round-trip matches) or to implement a ‘final four’ that it can even be played outside of Europe, something that would be unpopular and could spark an outcry from fans.

Last but not least, UEFA made it clear that there will be a 40% increase in the distribution of money for the clubs. Now they will distribute 4 billion euros per season.

Format changes will also apply to the other two international club competitions organized by UEFA. Both the Europa League and the Conference League will see the same increase from 32 to 36 teams. The first will have eight insured matches in the league phase, just like the Champions League, while in the second there will be six games that will be played in this instance.

This new format will guarantee an increase in the number of matches, something that from outside the field is beneficial in economic terms, but inside the field the debate of the “enslavement” of soccer players returns, who will play more games per season. It only remains to wait how we assimilate the birth of a new Champions.