There are some pretty big changes coming to the UEFA Champions League for the 2024/25 season.
Real Madrid won its record-breaking 15th title in the 2024/24 season, beating Borussia Dortmund 2-0 in the final to mark the end of an era for Europe’s most prestigious club cup.
Starting this year, the early stages of the tournament will see significant changes. The format will change from a group stage to a ‘league stage’, with the list of clubs expanded and the number of matches each team plays increased. UEFA is confident the changes will result in a more exciting competition, with ‘bigger’ clubs competing against each other more often.
Read on for a full breakdown of the revised format ahead of the Champions League draw on August 29.
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Explaining the new UEFA Champions League format: What’s different for 2024/25?
The main difference in this season’s Champions League is that the group stage has been replaced by a new ‘league stage’ and the number of participating teams has increased from 32 to 36.
Previously, 32 teams had qualified for the first phase of the tournament. They were then drawn into eight groups of four, with the seedings helping to determine which teams finished in which place. This was the “group stage”.
From the 2024/25 season, the first phase of the competition will see all 36 teams divided into a league format. Each team will face eight other teams (four at home, four away). These pairings will be determined by the draw on Thursday. A total of 16 teams will then qualify from this league phase for the knockout phase, which will start with the round of 16 and will be played in the usual format (ie home and away ties between two teams, with the winner advancing to the next round) until the final.
How many teams will be in the 2024/25 Champions League?
This season, 36 teams will take part in the draw for the Champions League league stage, four more than in previous seasons. These four additional places were awarded to the nations with the best coefficient result in the UEFA rankings, which last season were Germany and Italy.
The updated list of qualified teams can be found here. The final spots will be filled once the qualifying rounds are completed this week.
Which “Swiss model” does the Champions League use?
You may have heard this new Champions League format referred to as the “Swiss Model.” This is essentially another way of describing the switch to the new “League Phase” format for the first round of the actual tournament.
You can read more information about the so-called Swiss model and the reasons why UEFA decided to introduce it here.
What is the league phase and how does it work?
In the new league phase, 36 teams will compete together at one large table instead of being divided into groups of four.
The draw will then determine which teams will face each other in this first phase of the tournament. Each team will play eight others, with four home matches and four away matches. Teams will receive three points for a win and one for a draw, as is the norm in league football around the world.
At the end of the league phase, the top eight teams in the table automatically qualify for the round of 16. The teams ranked 9th to 24th play in a playoff round, with the seeded teams ranked 9th to 16th being drawn against unseeded opponents ranked 17th to 24th. The winners of these home and away playoff duels also advance to the round of 16.
The last twelve teams at the end of the league phase are eliminated.
The draw itself will continue to use seedings, similar to the old group stage, so teams will be drawn against a mix of opponents in terms of Champions League experience and pedigree. There will be four seeding pots, and each team will play one game against two teams from each pot. In UEFA’s own words: “This will give clubs the opportunity to test themselves against a wider range of opponents and increase the prospect for fans of seeing the top teams face each other more often and earlier in the competition. It will also result in more exciting games for all clubs overall.”
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Can teams still be relegated to the Europa League?
Previously, teams that finished third in their Champions League group had a certain grace period as they were relegated to the Europa League (or, in recent seasons, a Europa League playoff round), but this is no longer the case.
From 2024/25, the teams that finish in the last twelve places in the league phase of the Champions League will not be relegated to the Europa League. Instead, they will be eliminated from European competition entirely for this season.
How does the knockout phase work?
There have been few changes in the knockout phase despite the new, expanded format for the league phase.
A total of 16 teams – the top eight teams in the league table and the winners of the playoff games – qualify for the round of 16. From there, the old format with home and away games in knockout mode continues to apply: the winners of each game advance to the quarter-finals, then the semi-finals and finally the final.
When will the 2025 Champions League final take place?
The final of the 2025 Champions League will take place on May 31st in FC Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena.
You can find further details about the final and a full list of venues so far here.
