Uefa introduced a third tier competition
The UEFA Europa Conference League (UECL), colloquially referred to as UEFA Conference League, is a planned annual football club competition held by UEFA for eligible European football clubs.
Football Clubs will qualify for the competition based on their performance in their national leagues and cup competitions.
It will be the third tier of European club football, after the Champions League and the Europa League.
Similar to the UEFA Champions League, qualification to the Europa Conference League will be split into two Paths – the Champions Path and the League Path. Unlike the Champions League, however, the Champions Path will only be contested by teams which lost the qualification for the Champions League group stage and consequently have been relegated directly into the UEFA Europa Conference League.
The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients is used to determine the number of participating teams in the league path for each association:
Nations ranked 1 to 5 will have one team;
Nations ranked 6 to 15 will have two teams;
Nations ranked 16 to 50 will have three teams;
Nations ranked 51 to 55 will have two teams;
Liechtenstein does not have a domestic league and will provide the winner of the Liechtenstein Football Cup irrespective of their coefficient ranking.
Based on this reorganisation, no association will benefit from more berths to continental football than they had before the 2021–24 competition cycle, with the tournament essentially being the lower orders of the existing Europa League tournament but split off into a secondary tournament.
Group stage and knockout phase Edit
The format will see eight groups of four teams, followed by the round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final. An additional preliminary knockout round will be played before the round of 16 between teams ranked second in their groups and the third-ranked teams of the UEFA Europa League groups. The new competition will feature 141 matches over 15 match weeks.
The winner of the new competition will be entitled to participate in the UEFA Europa League in the following season. The new competition matches will be played on Thursdays.
Distribution (from 2021–22 to 2023–24) Edit
All qualification berths are based on UEFA’s default assumption that each association will submit one domestic cup winner as its highest-ranked qualifier after those eligible to enter the Champions League, and will define its remaining entrants by their league position in the previous year. England allocates its lowest-ranked qualification place to the winners of the EFL Cup or, if it already qualified to Champions League or Europa League, to the sixth or seven placed in Premier League.
Round First (72) Second Third Play-offs Groups (32) Pre-knockouts (16) Knockouts (16)
Winners (20) Losers (90) Winners (10) Losers (52) Winners (10) Losers (34)
Entrants 26 domestic cup winners from associations 30–55. Domestic leagues: 25 runners-up from associations 30–55 (except Liechtenstein) and 21 third-placed associations 29–50 teams (except Liechtenstein) 14 domestic associations 16–29 cup winners. Domestic leagues: 14 associations 16–29 runners-up, 16 third-placed associations 13–28 teams, 9 fourth-placed associations 7–15 teams and a 5th-placed association 6 team Domestic leagues: 6 third-placed teams from associations 7–12 and a 4th-placed association 6 team Domestic leagues: a 5th-placed association 5 team from and 4 sixth-placed associations 1–4 teams (EFL Cup winners for England)
From last round 36 winners from the 1st round 10 winners from the 2nd round for winners 45 winners from the 2nd round for losers 5 winners from the 3rd round for champions 26 winners from the 3rd qualifying round for losers Winners: 5 from the play-off round for winners and 17 from the play-off round for loser 8 group runners-up from the group stage Winners: 8 from the group stage and 8 from the pre-knockout round
From Champions League 17 eliminated from its 1st round and 3 eliminated from its preliminary round
From Europa League placed in Premier League.
Round First (72) Second Third Play-offs Groups (32) Pre-knockouts (16) Knockouts (16)
Winners (20) Losers (90) Winners (10) Losers (52) Winners (10) Losers (34)
Entrants 26 domestic cup winners from associations 30–55. Domestic leagues: 25 runners-up from associations 30–55 (except Liechtenstein) and 21 third-placed associations 29–50 teams (except Liechtenstein) 14 domestic associations 16–29 cup winners. Domestic leagues: 14 associations 16–29 runners-up, 16 third-placed associations 13–28 teams, 9 fourth-placed associations 7–15 teams and a 5th-placed association 6 team Domestic leagues: 6 third-placed teams from associations 7–12 and a 4th-placed association 6 team Domestic leagues: a 5th-placed association 5 team from and 4 sixth-placed associations 1–4 teams (EFL Cup winners for England)
From last round 36 winners from the 1st round 10 winners from the 2nd round for winners 45 winners from the 2nd round for losers 5 winners from the 3rd round for champions 26 winners from the 3rd qualifying round for losers Winners: 5 from the play-off round for winners and 17 from the play-off round for loser 8 group runners-up from the group stage Winners: 8 from the group stage and 8 from the pre-knockout round
From Champions League 17 eliminated from its 1st round and 3 eliminated from its preliminary round
From Europa League 5 eliminated from its 3rd round for winners 3 eliminated from its 3rd round for losers 10 eliminated from its play-off round 8 third-placed teams from its group stage
See also
