UEFA Champions League's new format for 2024-25 season explained

The UEFA Champions League 2024-25 season marks the introduction of a new format, the first change to the competition's structure since 2003-04, when the round of 16 stage was introduced.

The UEFA Champions League (UCL) will now feature 36 teams, up from 32 last season. The group stage has been replaced with a league system. Each team shall now play eight games against eight different teams. This replaces the previous format of six group matches against three opponents.

The football clubs will now play four home and four away games, with the results determining their place in the overall league table.

The top eight from the 36 teams automatically qualify for the round of 16, while those finishing 9th to 24th will enter a two-legged knockout play-off. The winners of these play-offs will fill the remaining eight spots in the round of 16. Teams finishing 25th and below will be eliminated.

In the knockout play-offs, clubs finishing 9th to 16th will be seeded and face unseeded teams placed 17th to 24th.

The seeding system continues into the round of 16, where clubs that finished first to eighth in the league phase will be seeded and will play against the winners of the knockout phase play-offs, who will be unseeded.

In the knockout phase play-offs and round of 16, seeded teams play the second leg at home.

The higher a team finishes in the league phase, the better its seeding position for the knockouts, influencing the team's path to the final. The round of 16 will be followed by quarter-finals, semis and the final.

Twenty-five of the 36 teams automatically qualify for the Champions League through their domestic league finishes. Member associations ranked first to fourth as per the UEFA coefficient have four spots each.

For the UCL 2024-25 season, these top four associations are England, Spain, Germany and Italy.

Fifth and sixth-ranked associations have been awarded three and two spots, respectively. Associations ranked seventh to 10th have one spot each for their domestic champions.

At UCL 2024-25, France and the Netherlands are ranked fifth and sixth, respectively. Portugal, Belgium, Scotland and Austria are seventh to 10th in that order.

Two spots have been reserved for the Champions League and Europa League holders. Rebalancing will be required if either or both title holders also qualify through their domestic league standings.

For the 2024-25 season, Spain’s Real Madrid (Champions League winners) and Italy’s Atalanta (Europa League champions) qualified through their league standings.

This allowed Shakhtar Donetsk, the Ukrainian Premier League champions, to claim the spot reserved for the UCL holders, as they had the highest UEFA coefficient among champions from associations ranked 11–55. Champions from associations ranked 1 to 10 automatically qualified for the league phase.

Meanwhile, Portugal’s Benfica, boasting the highest UEFA coefficient among UCL qualifiers, took the spot reserved for the Europa League winners.

Additionally, the two teams earned entry via their European performances. The European Performance Spots are awarded to member associations whose clubs achieved the best collective results in the previous season’s UEFA men's club competitions.

Italy’s Bologna and Germany’s Borussia Dortmund earned the right to play in the UCL 2024-25 based on these criteria.

The remaining places are filled through the champions path and league path qualifying rounds. The champions path includes domestic league winners while the league path features runners-up, third, and fourth-placed teams. Each tie in these rounds is played over two legs, home and away.

Five teams - Young Boys (Switzerland), Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia), Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia), Sparta Praha (Czechia) and Red Star Belgrade (Serbia) - earned the spots through the champions path for UCL 2024-25. Meanwhile, Lille (France) and Salzburg (Austria) advanced via the league path.