Club competitions
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Our iconic club competitions make a critical contribution to keeping European men's and women's club football at the top of the global game.
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From the early days of UEFA, our club competitions have embodied the principles of the European sports model. First and foremost, qualification is based on sporting merit and is open to every domestic club in Europe.
For more than 70 years, we have strived to ensure that as many European players as possible can take advantage of this opportunity. This is why we introduced the UEFA Cup in 1971 and the UEFA Women's Cup in 2001, today better known as the Women's Champions League. More recently, it was the key rationale behind our decision to add the UEFA Conference League to our club competition calendar, alongside the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League.
"We have been at the top of the game for decades... we are humble enough to put this indisputable success down to a model based on solidarity, investment, unity, sporting merit, promotion and relegation."
Today more than 700 men's and women's clubs participating in Europe's top domestic leagues can aspire to earn a place on the starting grid of the best competitions in the world. Here we take an in-depth look at how their success stretches far beyond the pitch to benefit the wider football and European community.
Open competitions based on sporting merit
Since the dawn of the 2021/22 men's club competition cycle and the launch of the Conference League, some 200 teams located across Europe's footballing map participate in the qualification stages of our three men's club competitions.
In the 2022/23 season alone, nine clubs made their European group stage debut, including three from countries that were represented in a UEFA club competition group stage for the first time: Kosovan champions Ballkani, Liechtenstein’s Vaduz and Žalgiris from Lithuania all broke new ground by appearing in the Conference League.
New formats to raise standards
We have always evolved the formats of UEFA competitions to deliver the best for players and fans – and our men's and women's club competitions are no exception.
Men's club football
The start of our 2024–27 men's club competition cycle heralds the most significant transformation in formats since the introduction of the Champions League group stages. All three competitions – the Champions League, Europa League and Conference league – swap their group stages for three all-new leagues followed by knockout rounds. Thirty-six teams – four more than the group stages – make-up each league.
More teams, more meaningful matches and more opportunities to see Europe’s top sides clash: the revamped format demonstrates how we continually adapt our competitions for the benefit of clubs, players and fans. The changes increase competitive balance, ensure a higher number of meaningful matches against a wider range of opponents and continue to deliver the best of the best.
Club competitions format 2024-2027
Women's club football
Four strategic goals lay behind our revamp of the Women’s Champions League, which kicked off in the 2021/22 season. It has delivered on each one:
- Strength in depth: the format introduced four groups of four teams playing each other home and away – with the top two per group qualifying for the quarter-finals – together with two qualifying rounds split into a champions path and a league path.
- Surge in interest: staging matches in Europe's most prestigious stadiums has significantly boosted visibility with 20 women's clubs breaking their Champions League attendance records in the 2022/23 season.
- World-wide visibility: our media rights partnership with DAZN has showcased the best of European women's club football to new global audiences.
- Added value for wider game: centralised media and commercial rights have increased the competition's value more than four-fold and pathed the way for our pioneering financial distribution model which extends the benefits across the entire women's club landscape.
In 2025/26, we will build on the Women's Champions League's success by introducing a single-league stage featuring 18 teams and adding a second European women’s club competition. Both steps will give the chance to more clubs across the football pyramid to compete at the highest level, promoting domestic growth and competitive balance.
Reinvestment in football development
As well as expanding the geographic scope of our club competitions, we also ensure that their financial success is spread more equitably and fairly across the European club landscape.
Men's club football
Since the 1999/2000 season, we have distributed a percentage of our men's club competition revenue to clubs that do not qualify for the group stages or did not participate at all. These solidarity payments, which are earmarked for investment in youth development programmes and/or local community schemes, help to level the playing field between clubs and leagues.
The new 2024–27 cycle will almost double the proportion of total revenue distributed to teams not taking part in our three competitions. Our memorandum of understanding with the European Club Association will see an additional 30% of the net surplus – up to a maximum of €35m – channelled to non-participating clubs.
Women's club football
Following the 2021 revamp of the Women’s Champions League, we now make annual solidarity payments to women's clubs to to invest in developing the game. Each association with at least one club in the 2022/23 edition received a share of €5.6m to distribute equally among their non-participating top domestic clubs.
Social impact
The enormous popularity and reach of our club competitions brings an added responsibility: harnessing their power promote social and environmental change within the footballing community and across the continent.
"When your sport is played and followed by millions of people, your actions have an enormous impact on society, especially the young. That brings a responsibility that football cannot ignore and is why we have integrated social responsibility into every aspect of our strategy for European football."
We want our all competitions – club and national team – to make a difference off the pitch as well as on it, whether through public awareness campaigns, reducing the carbon footprint of our events or educating young players about racism, sexism, homophobia and discrimination. Here are just a few examples of club competition initiatives in recent seasons:
UEFA Super Cup
At the start of every season, the UEFA Foundation for Children capitalises on the reach and visibility of our Super Cup – the annual clash between the reigning men's Champions League and Europa Cup winners – to raise awareness of local communities' life-changing support for young people.
Making dreams come true
UEFA Champions League final
We also encourage associations and cities hosting our club competition finals to leverage the opportunity a lasting legacy, both for the football community and society.
Munich 2025
UEFA club finals
Since 2022/23, we have applied an environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy to all UEFA finals and final tournaments. This makes sustainability an integral part of their design, planning and implementation.
Safeguarding integrity and sustainability
Our club licensing and financial sustainability regulations help to protect the integrity of our competitions as well as the long-term viability of European club football.
First introduced in 2004, any club that has qualified for our competitions must meet minimum criteria set out in our club licensing regulations before they can play an official UEFA match. Regularly updated, the ninth edition of these regulations, issued in 2022, obliges clubs to meet standards on youth development, coaching, financial transparency and social responsibility.
Similarly, our first-ever club licensing regulations for women's football, also approved in 2022, require clubs to invest in the game's long-term development. They set minimum thresholds for training facilities, support for youth and technical development, and mandatory youth teams and additional coaching staff.
"As European football's governing body, it is our duty to ensure financial stability. Our new rules have received unanimous support from across the European football community."
Since the introduction of our financial fair play rules in 2010, we have worked closely with the European football community to ensure clubs are financially sustainable and keep their costs under control. After the global pandemic caused cumulative losses of €7 billion among top-division clubs, we revised our financial sustainability regulations to focus on solvency, stability and cost control.