CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
UEFA’s Marchetti outlines new Champions League format: more teams, games and money
Giorgio Marchetti, UEFA General Secretary, and Tobias Hedstück, Head of UEFA Club Competitions were in the Spanish capital offering a debrief on the new UCL format.
High ranking UEFA officials Giorgio Marchetti (General Secretary) and Tobias Hedstück (Head of Club Competitions), were in Madrid where they offered leading club officials a debriefing of the new look ‘Swiss Model’ expanded Champions League which gets underway in September.
“The clubs wanted this and some even needed this change,” said Marchetti. Several of the reasons offered by UEFA for the change are to provide greater competitiveness in the group stage, a diversity of matchups, an increase in participation and a change in the narrative of the competition.
The current group stage format (often criticized as boring and predictable) is eliminated and now we’ll have one standalone 36 team league although not everyone will play against everyone. Each team will now play four home and away games against opponents drawn from seeded pots with then draw set to be determined by a computer.
Clubs will be assigned to four pots according to ranking and teams from same country cannot meet in the league stage.
After the eight games, the teams in the top eight places automatically take a place in the Round of 16 with teams who finish 9-24 going into a knockout play-off round to join the top eight in the last 16 as teams in 25-36th places eliminated from all competitions.
Another new feature that will be introduced next season will see Champions League match days now be played on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays.
The final of the 2024-25 competition will be held at Munich’s Allianz Arena with UEFA earlier this week that the city of Budapest will host the final in 2026.
More prize money
UEFA also confirmed that their revised projected value for the new format will be 4.4 billion euros, compared to the 3.5 billion euros of this cycle. The new financial distribution will also see an increase of solidarity payments by 10% - 3% for qualified teams and 7% for non-participating teams with the Women’s Champions League and the Youth League also set to secure 25 million euro.