UEFA Club Competitions new 2024-27 Cycle [Update - Including Revenue Distribution]

Introduction - This document aims to clarify to all member leagues and their affiliated clubs the upcoming changes in the 2024-27 UEFA Club Competitions cycle when it comes to Format, Calendar, Access List and Revenue Distribution system.

With the 2023-24 UEFA club competition campaign kicking off last September, we have now entered the final season of the current UEFA cycle. Starting from next year, we will transition into the 2024-27 cycle, a period marked by significant changes, particularly in the format of UEFA club competitions. These changes will have a profound impact on both the competition calendar and the access list.

To provide some context, back in April 2021, the UEFA Executive Committee approved a new format for club competitions, set to be implemented starting from the 2024-25 season. Following months of discussions and intense debate, the new format, calendar, and access criteria received definitive approval from the UEFA Executive Committee in Vienna a year later, in May 2022. In September 2023, UEFA announced a new revenue distribution system to “deliver unprecedented solidarity increase”, resulting in a higher share for non-participating clubs.

The European Leagues are pleased to break down these changes and their implications for European professional club football. So, what will UEFA club competitions look like from the 2024-25 season?

1 – FORMAT details

Starting from the next season, the most significant change is the shift from the traditional group stage to a single-league phase that includes all participating teams. The present European competitions group stage includes 32 participants divided into eight groups of four. Under the new format, 36 clubs will participate in a single league-phase (former group stage), giving four more sides the opportunity to compete in UEFA club competition.

Every team will now play a minimum of 8 league phase matches against 8 different opponents, with four at home and four away (except for the UEFA Conference League, which has six matches per team). To determine the league-phase fixtures, there will be a draw at the start of the season based on the following principles:

• For both the UCL and the UEL, the 36 teams will be divided into four pots of nine, with the split based on UEFA club coefficients and also taking into account the current title holders. Each club will be drawn to play two teams from each pot. So, unlike in the current format, a club in Pot 1 will play two other clubs from Pot 1.

• In the case of the UECL, the 36 teams will be divided into 6 pots of 6, with clubs playing against 1 team from each pot.

Teams affiliated with the same association will not be drawn against each other. Nevertheless, in order to prevent potential deadlocks, leagues with four or more clubs could play one match against another team from the same country.

Following the league phase, the top eight teams will advance directly to the Round of 16. Teams in positions 9 to 24 will enter knockout playoffs to compete for the remaining eight places in the Round of 16 (two-legged confrontation). Teams in positions 25 to 36 will be eliminated from all European competitions, with no dropdown to other competitions.

There will be only one knockout-round draw for the round of 16 onwards, with teams seeded according to their final league-phase positions. This means that the final position in the table will be important, the higher the ranking in the league, the more favourable the knockout stage should be.

2 – Impact on CALENDAR

With an increase in the number of matches per team, there will be 4 additional weeks of European matches bringing the total number of match weeks for UEFA club competitions to 10, up from 6 in the previous cycle. This decision will definitely put much pressure on domestic leagues whose calendars are already much congested.

In its original plan, UEFA proposed a total of 10 matches for all teams participating in the UCL league phase, but after consulting with key stakeholders, they decided to reduce it to a 8 matches per team. The European Leagues played a fundamental role in these negotiations and this adjustment was made to avoid additional pressure on domestic leagues and their value in the market. In this setup, the UEFA Champions League was initially set to almost double in size, but UEFA scaled back to 8 league phase fixtures, resulting in a total of 189 (+64) games in the season, still a very important increase considering that with the current format 125 is the total number of UCL matches during one season. The UEL will feature the same number of games, while the UECL will have slightly less, with 153 games in total.

Another new innovation is the introduction of "exclusive Match Week" dates for each competition, aiming to promote and give more visibility to each of them. The UCL and UECL exclusive match week will be in September, while the UEL exclusive match week will take place

3 – The new ACCESS LIST

The basis of the access list will remain the same as for the current season, but with the increase of participating teams in all competitions, 4 additional slots will be available in 2024/25, allocated as follows:

UEFA Champions League:

• Slot one: This slot will be awarded to the club ranked third in the championship of the association in fifth position in the access list;

• Slot two: This slot will be given to a domestic champion by increasing the number of clubs qualifying via the Champions path from four to five;

• Slots three and four: These slots will be granted to the associations with the best overall performance by their clubs in the previous season. The two associations with the highest coefficients will each earn one automatic place in the league phase for the club that is ranked next-best in their domestic league, among those clubs that have not already qualified directly for the league phase.

UEFA Europa League:

• Slot one: This slot will be awarded to the Cup Winner of the association in seventh position in the access list;

• Slot two: This slot will be allocated to an additional domestic champion which comes from the UCL Champions path Playoffs round;

• Slots three and four: These slots will be given to two additional teams by increasing the number of clubs qualifying via the Europa League qualification rounds from 10 to 12;

UEFA Europa Conference League:

• Slot one and two: These slots will be allocated to two additional teams which comes from the UEL Playoffs round (12 teams now qualifying instead of 10 previously);

• Slots three and four: These slots will be given to two additional teams by increasing the number of clubs qualifying via the Europa Conference League qualification rounds from 17 to 19.

4 – REVENUE DISTRIBUTION system

Starting from next cycle, with a new competition format being introduced, featuring an expanded number of participating clubs and a greater number of matches, UEFA expects a substantial rise in revenue from club competitions surpassing the current €3.6 billion per season (season 2021/22). The latest projection for total commercial revenue by UEFA is set at €4.4 billion per season for the next cycle.

On 6 September 2023, UEFA unveiled a new revenue distribution system with the aim of "delivering an unprecedented increase in solidarity." As a result, the allocation earmarked for clubs that won’t participate in UEFA Club Competitions league phase is set to increase to 7%, marking a substantial rise from the current season’s 4.75% share of the generated income. It is important to note that the 7% solidarity payments will be calculated on a capped projected €4.4 billion in revenue, meaning any surplus in revenue will not be included into the distribution for these non-participating clubs. In concrete terms, this change will guarantee non-participating clubs €308 million per season, a substantial increase from the current €175 million, starting in the 2024-25 season.

Over the years, the European Leagues and its members have constantly called UEFA and the football stakeholders to implement a fairer revenue distribution model in UCC in order to safeguard the competitive balance of domestic league competitions. Therefore, the European Leagues welcome UEFA’s decision to increase the share allocated to clubs participating in UCC. This move will assist all clubs across Europe in maintaining their competitiveness on and off the pitch while keeping investing in youth and talent development.

The distribution mechanism, including its criteria, of revenues to non-participating clubs will be deliberated in the upcoming months. During this process, UEFA together with the European Leagues & ECA will collaborate closely to devise a system that is equitable and sustainable for all clubs throughout Europe.

Finally, the new distribution system for participating clubs will give greater focus to participation (from 25% to 27,5% will be shared equally) and performance (from 30% to 37,5%), while the existing two pillars of market pool and coefficient will be merged and reduced (from 45% to 35%).

Source: UEFA