The Champions League will undergo a new format starting from the 2024-25 season. The old 32-team, eight-group format will be replaced by a 36-club league phase, with each club playing eight matches against eight different opponents. The top eight clubs in the league phase will automatically qualify for the knockout stage, while clubs finishing from 9th to 24th will have to win a two-legged play-in round to qualify. Clubs finishing 25th and lower will not continue in European competition.<\/p>\n
The draw will sort clubs into four pots based on their UEFA coefficient ranking, with each team facing two clubs from each pot, and no more than two clubs from the same country. The draw process will be mostly done by a computer to save time and will ensure fairness.<\/p>\n
The playoff round will be seeded, pitting clubs against each other based on their rankings. The round of 16 and beyond will also be seeded, preventing the top finishers in the league phase from meeting each other until the final. The draw for the knockout phase will partly depend on the league phase rankings and will be determined by a computerized draw system designed by AE Live and audited by Ernst and Young.<\/p>\n
These changes aim to decrease the likelihood of a club drawing all the toughest opponents and making the competition fairer. The league stage will now stretch through the end of January, with the final taking place in Munich on 31 May 2025.<\/p>\n
Here are the key dates:<\/p>\n
– Matchday 1: 17\u201319 September 2024
\n– Matchday 2: 1\/2 October 2024
\n– Matchday 3: 22\/23 October 2024
\n– Matchday 4: 5\/6 November 2024
\n– Matchday 5: 26\/27 November 2024
\n– Matchday 6: 10\/11 December 2024
\n– Matchday 7: 21\/22 January 2025
\n– Matchday 8: 29 January 2025
\n– Knockout round play-offs: 11\/12 & 18\/19 February 2025
\n– Round of 16: 4\/5 & 11\/12 March 2025
\n– Quarter-finals: 8\/9 & 15\/16 April 2025
\n– Semi-finals: 29\/30 April & 6\/7 May 2025
\n– Final: 31 May 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Champions League will undergo a new format starting from the 2024-25 season. The old 32-team, eight-group format will be replaced by a 36-club league phase, with each club playing eight matches against eight different opponents. The top eight clubs in the league phase will automatically qualify for the knockout stage, while clubs finishing from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":46240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[1441],"class_list":["post-46239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-ucl-draw"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46241,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46239\/revisions\/46241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}