Plus a UEFA tournament. New format of the Women’s Champions League announced

The UEFA Executive Committee has approved a new concept for the development of European women’s club football after 2025. The board approved a new format for the Women’s Champions League and introduced another women’s club tournament.

new format Women’s Champions League It will come into force from the 2025/26 season. It will consist of a single league stage consisting of 18 teams. This will allow more clubs to compete in a more competitive and dynamic tournament. This format ensures that every match matters.

Reasons for changing the format of the Women’s Champions League

The current format is one of the first successes of UEFA’s Time to Act strategy for women’s football, which has sought to develop the game in Europe by raising its standards and increasing the reach and value of competitions since 2019. Following the reformat of the competition, the 2021/22 season saw record stadium attendances and television audiences. UEFA wants to build on this success and make the Women’s Champions League even more competitive. The change in format will allow the top teams to meet each other more often and have a wider choice of opponents without increasing the number of matches at this stage.

UEFA Women’s Champions League format from the 2025/26 season

According to the new format, teams will no longer face three opponents twice, home and away. They will play six different opponents in the league, and they will play half of these matches at home and the other half away.

To determine these six different opponents, teams will be placed into three bags according to their club coefficients in the UEFA rankings. To ensure a balanced level of competition and a balanced schedule for everyone, each team will play two opponents from each of these pots and will play one home and one away match against a team from each pot.

The results of each match will determine the team’s ranking in the new league: three points for a win, one point for a draw and zero points for a loss. The new format, where all teams are gathered in a single league, will mean that the tournament will be played until the last match.

The top four teams of the league will automatically advance to the quarter-finals, while the teams ranked 5th to 12th will compete in the two-legged play-off stage to guarantee their place in the quarter-finals. Teams finishing between 13th and 18th places are eliminated.

The four clubs that win the play-offs will advance to the quarter-finals, where they will each play one of the top four clubs and the quarter-final second leg at home.

From the quarter-finals onwards, the competition will follow the current knockout stage format and culminate in the final at a neutral venue to be determined by UEFA.

Who will qualify for the new Women’s Champions League and how will the format work?

Starting from the 2025/26 season, 18 teams will compete in the league stage, two more than the current group stage format. In addition to the winners of the previous season’s Women’s Champions League and the champions of the three top-ranked national associations who have qualified directly for the current format, the champions of the federations that finished between 4th and 6th and the runners-up of the first and second federations will also become champions. You will also receive direct passes to the league stage.

They will be joined by a further four teams via the Champions Qualification Pathway and a further five via the League Qualification Pathway, which will be expanded to include two new teams. In other words, the federation ranked 17th ranked second, and the federation ranked third ranked seventh. The renewed qualification guarantees that more teams will participate in the league stage and means that eight teams will play two fewer qualifying matches.

Why is UEFA organizing a second women’s club tournament and how will it be played?

UEFA’s main aim was to create a second tournament, which would allow more clubs to compete in Europe and provide greater incentives for investment in women’s football at domestic level.

8-13 in national leagues. teams that are third in the standings and 18-24. 13 teams, including the second-placed teams in the ranked associations, will automatically participate in this tournament, and the clubs eliminated in the 2nd round will be given a second chance. In the Champions League, the teams that finished second and third took part in the first round.

The second tournament will be held in a direct play-off format, parallel to the Women’s Champions League. It will consist of six rounds in total: first, second, 1/8 final, 1/4 final, 1/2 final and the final, which will be played in a two-legged format (home and away). The winner of the tournament will automatically qualify for the second round of next season’s Women’s Champions League.