The league phase draws for the Uefa Champions League 2024/25 will take place on Thursday 29 August, 2024 while the Uefa Europa League and Europa Conference League 2024/25 will hold the next day, Friday 30 August, 2024.
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| From Right: Trophies of the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League. Photo: uefa.com |
All three league phase draws will take place at the same venue, the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco, France.
According to uefa.com:
How does the new format work?
The biggest change to all three competitions is to the group stage, which will become a single 36-team league phase. In the Champions League and Europa League, each side faces eight different teams (four at home, four away); in the Conference League each club faces six different teams (three at home, three away).
In all three competitions, the top eight overall advance directly to the round of 16; sides finishing from ninth to 24th will contest the knockout phase play-offs, with the victors going through to the last 16. From then on it is a straight knockout.
Teams that finish 25th or lower in the league phase of all three competitions will be eliminated from Europe, with no access to other tournaments.
How will the draws work?
In the Champions League and Europa League, teams will be seeded in four pots based on their individual club coefficient at the beginning of the season, the only exception being that the Champions League title holders will be top seed in pot 1 regardless of coefficient.
Each team will then be drawn against two opponents from each pot, one of which they will play at home and one away. In the Conference League, teams will be seeded in six pots, with each team facing six opponents, one from each of the pots.
In the league phase teams cannot face opponents from their own country and can be drawn against a maximum of two sides from the same country.
In each competition, all 36 teams will be manually drawn using physical balls. For every team manually drawn, a designated automated software will randomly draw their opponents, who will be revealed on screen in the draw hall and on television. The software will also decide which matches will be at home and which ones away.
The draw will start with Pot 1, assigning opponents to all teams, one after the other, and will continue with the other pots in descending order until all teams have been assigned their opponents.
