UEFA is introducing a second European Cup in women’s football for the 2025/26 season. “Women’s Europa Cup” will be the second competition under the Champions League.
At its meeting on Monday (December 16, 2024) in Lausanne, Switzerland, the UEFA Executive Committee decided on the name of the competition, the introduction of which had already been decided. The “Women’s Europa Cup” should now play a similar role for women as the Europa League does for men.
From 2025/26 there will be a permanent women’s competition in addition to the Champions League.
Mode in the women’s Champions League will soon be the same as for the men
The Women’s Champions League is currently still being played in the old group system. From the 2025/26 season it will also have a league format analogous to the men’s Champions League. 18 teams play there, each has six games. The four best teams reach the quarter-finals, the next eight advance to the intermediate round. Six clubs are eliminated.
The Bundesliga champions have qualified directly from Germany, currently the fourth-best country in the UEFA rankings. The second and third place teams in the Bundesliga play in the final qualifying round for the Champions League.
FC Bayern players celebrate a goal in the Champions League
New competition with knockout games only
Should the clubs lose in qualifying, they would end up in the second round of the new second competition. This does not consist of groups or a league – it is purely a knockout competition.
The second round is followed by a round of 16 and the remaining rounds until the final. All rounds – including the final – will be played in a two-leg format. The winner of the tournament gets a starting place in the league phase of the Champions League in the following season.
UEFA women’s football chief speaks of a “milestone”
Former German international Nadine Keßler heads the women’s football department at UEFA. In a statement she spoke of one “Milestone for the professionalization of European club football”. According to UEFA, the main aim of introducing the second competition is to enable more clubs to take part in international games.
In principle, UEFA announced that it would invest one billion euros in women’s football by 2030.
Nadine Keßler heads women’s football at UEFA.
Women’s football is in transition internationally
For women’s football, the introduction of the new competition is just one of numerous changes that UEFA and FIFA are currently making:
- World Cup: The World Cup was played for the first time in 2023 with 32 teams instead of the previous 24; the next edition will take place in Brazil in 2027.
- Club World Cup: The tournament is part of many debates about the burden and financial implications for men, but there will also be a tournament for women with 16 teams: it will take place for the first time in January and February 2026 and will then be held every four years.
- European Championship: The men’s Club World Cup has consequences for the women’s European Championship. The women’s tournaments have so far had the chance to avoid the men’s tournaments in odd-numbered years in order to secure unrestricted attention. At the 2025 European Championship in Switzerland, the men’s Club World Cup will partly be a counter-event. The decisive rounds of the men’s tournament with the top European clubs took place over the group phase of the women’s European Championship.
- Nations League: Since 2023, the Nations League has run in a slightly different format than for men. It is closely linked to the qualifying competitions for the European Championships and World Cup. Above all, the tournament is intended to bring more valuable and closer games in terms of sport.
- European Championship and World Cup qualification: In the future, the European Championship or World Cup qualification in Europe will alternate annually with the Nations League: The Nations League every two years, the World Cup and European Championship qualification alternately every four years. The special thing: promotion and relegation also take place in the qualification, the competitions are linked to each other.
- Olympics: At the Olympic Games, the women’s football tournament is much more important than the men’s. The clubs are obliged to release the players, so the important players are there. Now, from 2028, the tournament will take place with 16 teams instead of the previous 12, as is the case for men; a decision is still pending.