As of next season, the Champions League will look very different to its present incarnation, with group stages done away it in favour of one big league featuring an extended number of 36 teams.
Teams that finish in the top eight of this league will automatically qualify for the knock-out stage.
Teams that finish between ninth and 24th will compete in two-legged play-offs to determine who makes up the final 16. From there, we are in familiar territory, with the winners of those games reaching the quarter-finals.
It is a dramatic restructuring of the prestigious club competition that has led to UEFA facing widespread criticism and we will come to that in due course. The back story behind the new-look tournament is worth exploring too.
Before that though, let’s find out what awaits us in 2024/25, as well as discovering why everyone keeps referring to it as a ‘Swiss model’.
Simply put, the new format is called a ‘Swiss model’ because it is based on a structure commonly used in chess competitions – a structure that unsurprisingly originates from Switzerland – that means that not every participant in a league has to play one another.
Even UEFA, who tend to prioritise profit over practicality, recognised that it would prove impossible to squeeze so many fixtures into an already crammed footballing calendar. So it is that each team will play only eight opponents, four at home, four away.
Who each side faces will be decided by a draw held at the start of next season, done in a manner in which we are already accustomed to.
All 36 teams will be divided into four pots, based on club’s coefficients, and by the end of the draw all 36 will be scheduled to face two teams from each pot, one home, one away.
In theory therefore, a side heavily backed in the sports betting to go all the way, such as Manchester City could face Bayern Munich – also in pot 1 – at the Etihad, then Real Madrid at the Bernabeu, these battle of the behemoths taking place in what was so recently the group stage.
In that regard, it is an improvement on the old way, a chance to see properly competitive action early in the tournament as opposed to having these three giants progress through their group with the minimum of fuss.
They will anyway, of course, with the new system and increased number of games and opponents offering an even wider margin for error.
There is additionally another plus. From 2024/25, teams who exit the Champions League will no longer parachute into the Europa League. That was a long-standing bug-bear of many.
Where criticism is warranted however comes in the bloating of the competition to 36 participants, an increase of four teams that has naturally enough led to concerns of further burdening footballers with never-ending commitments.
The present version of the Champions League comprises of 125 matches, the new version – with play-offs included – 189 and as well as the welfare of players who face burn-out, there is also match-going supporters and their pockets to consider too.
Moreover, the new league structure doesn’t sit right with those among us who greatly fear a ‘Super League’ coming into existence during our lifetime.
Is this UEFA getting one through, under their governance, via the back door? Not quite, but it’s now only a few tweaks away from becoming one, and that’s a worry.
Lastly, how annoyingly complicated the transformed tournament is has to be a consideration, a confusion best exemplified by explaining how the extra four teams are chosen.
Two places will go to the top two performing leagues in Europe this term, meaning the Premier League side who finishes fifth come May could get in should Manchester City give credence to the football odds and replicate last year’s success on the continent.
A further spot will be granted to a third-place finisher in a league ranked fifth in the UEFA coefficient. Read that sentence again and it will still require more trust, than understanding.
A last place will go to a champion of a smaller domestic league that currently doesn’t gain automatic entry.
With the increased number of fixtures necessitating the opening period of the Champions League running into January, thus clogging up an already hectic festive schedule in England, it brings to mind that old adage about fixing something that isn’t broken, but then again, UEFA didn’t view the old way as broken, nor have they tried to mend anything.
For them it’s entirely about money, boosting their already bulging coffers with an additional 64 Champions League games to charge television networks to broadcast.
The timing of their announcement meanwhile, to bring these changes in, continues to irk.
When a breakaway European Super League was threatened two years ago, UEFA were in the very rare position of being the good guys, the side we were rooting for. To take advantage of that goodwill by introducing a less controversial alternative was brazen even by their standards.
It was an alternative nobody sought, and most damning of all, one that was absolutely not needed.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*
