From the 2024/2025 season, the Netherlands may participate in the Champions League with at least two football clubs. In addition to the champion of the following season, the number two is also guaranteed to participate in the highest European football competition. The team that finishes third next year may play in the third preliminary round.
Currently, only the champion of the Eredivisie is assured of a place in the Champions League, where the number two must try to qualify through the preliminary round. Because Dutch teams have performed well in European football competitions over the past five years, with the semi-final of Ajax in the 2018/2019 Champions League season and the final place in the Conference League for Feyenoord in 2022 as highlights, the Netherlands received many points on the so-called coefficient list from UEFA.
This list awards points to countries based on their clubs’ European performance over the past five years. After Feyenoord won against AS Roma on Thursday evening and Sporting CP lost against Juventus, the Netherlands definitively took over sixth place from Portugal, which is therefore good for two guaranteed places in the Champions League. The advance of the Netherlands can be called spectacular: in 2018, the Netherlands was fourteenth on this coefficient list.
For football clubs, the Champions League is a very lucrative tournament: in addition to the starting amount of more than 15.6 million euros, a club receives money for the performance in the tournament, for TV money and, of course, ticket sales. In the 2024/2025 season, the number of participating clubs in the Champions League will grow from 32 to 36 and each club will play at least ten instead of at least six matches. The higher number of participating clubs and matches to be played will provide even more income from that season onwards.