UEFA to change Champions League format in 2024/25 season

The European football governing body, UEFA, has come up with a new format for the UEFA Champions League, reports claim.

UEFA are considering the prospect of adapting the Nation’s League format to Europe’s premier club competition. In this adaptation, two-legged semi-finals will become a thing of the past in the Champions League.

UEFA are looking at the prospect of a one week finale for the Champions League, which will see the two semi-final matches and the final being held in one week at a selected venue.

The Champions League has already been scheduled for a format change in the 2024/25 season. There will be 36 teams instead of 32 teams playing in a single league. Each team will face 10 different teams in this format, and the top eight teams will move on to the round of 16.

The teams occupying the ninth down to the 24th slot will enter a play-off round, and the successful eight teams from this playoff round will progress to the round of 16. From then on, it will be business as usual.

However, the top brass of European football wants to make more changes and according to The Times, the European Club Association is preparing to back the idea. This is because the new style format will have more group games and the proposed change to the semi-finals will reduce the number of fixtures that teams have to play in a season.

Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the president of Paris Saint-Germain and the current chairman of the ECA, is said to be in favour of the idea because his team gave positive feedback on the one-off 2020 Champions League format which happened due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has been touring the idea since last year. He told The Times last September: “If you look at the Super Bowl, it’s a great event and they do it in a great way. They have concerts and people go there and have fun.

“Even if you lose those two matches you can get more revenue to compensate. It could be a fantastic event for broadcasters, for sponsors.

“In the same week you could have the final of the women’s Champions League or youth competitions, you could really have a fantastic week of football. These knockout matches are different and more exciting.”

No decision has been reached yet on the proposed one week finale.