The 2023/24 season will be the last with a group stage in the previous format – most participants and large parts of the pots have already been determined. In 2024 the competition will be fundamentally changed.
The final group stage of the Champions League will be drawn on August 31st. 32 teams are playing, 26 have long been determined, only six clubs are still coming from qualifying.
Four teams in each of the eight groups will play against each other one last time in a home and away game. For example, Union Berlin could play in a group with FC Barcelona, Manchester United and AC Milan.
Most of the 2023/24 Champions League pots have already been decided:
- Raffle 1: Manchester City, Sevilla FC, FC Barcelona, SSC Napoli, Bayern MunichParis Saint Germain, Benfica Lisbon.
- Raffle 2: Real Madrid, Manchester United, Inter Milan, Borussia DortmundAtletico Madrid, RB LeipzigFC Porto, FC Arsenal.
- Raffle 3: Shakhtar Donetsk, Red Bull (FC) Salzburg, AC Milan, Lazio Rome, Red Star Belgrade.
- Lottery pot 4: Union BerlinRC Lens
- Not yet classified: Real Sociedad, Glasgow Celtic and Newcastle United have also qualified, ending up in Pot 3 or Pot 4. There are also six teams from qualifying.
Each of the eight groups will receive one team from each pot, teams from the same country are not allowed to meet.
Champions League draw
Faroe Islands’ Klaksvik with biggest upset in 1st round of qualifiers
Qualifying for the final group stage is currently underway. Klaksvik, a club of 5,000 people from the Faroe Islands, managed the biggest surprise. With a 3-0 away win in the second leg at Ferencvaros Budapest, the team advanced to the second round of qualifying (first leg: 0-0).
Ferencvaros had won his group in the Europa League last season and only failed in the round of 16 against Bayer Leverkusen. Klaksvik received a euphoric welcome at home and now meet Swedish champions BK Häcken.
League phase instead of group phase from 2024/25
While qualifying will work much like it does today, the actual tournament will remain little the same from the 2024/25 season onwards. The most important changes:
- play in the future 36 instead of 32 teams with.
- Of the four additional places one goes to fifth place in the five-year ranking (currently France). In addition, another team qualified from the qualification.
- The allocation of the other two places is new: The two countries, who perform best in Europe within a season, receive another place in the Champions League in the following season. The number of places in the Europa League and the Conference League of these two countries will not be reduced. Theoretically, a fifth place in the Champions League would be possible for the Bundesliga.
- Instead of in group games in a league played, there is a big table with 36 teams.
- The first eight of the table at the end of the league phase reach the round of 16. The following 16 teams are in a knockout round for the other eight places in the round of 16, with the rest eliminated.
- In the round of 16 clubs are placed in the tournament tree according to their place in the tablewhich is similar to how tennis tournaments work.
- A Relegation to the Europa League is no longer possiblethat’s only possible in the qualification.
More games, more money – and new problems
In the Champions League, there will be 189 games per season from 2024 instead of the previous 125. The Europa League and the Conference League were also expanded and switched to the new mode.
UEFA is introducing a total of four new dates to the football calendar, the Champions League sometimes plays on Thursdays, and there are also exclusive dates for the other two competitions. There should also be more money: instead of the previous 3.5 billion euros per season, UEFA is hoping for around 4.8 billion per season.