UEFA Futsal Champions League elite round draw

The UEFA Futsal Champions League elite round draw split the 16 contenders progressing from the main round into four groups that will decide the knockout finalists.

The elite round will be played as one-venue mini-tournaments from 28 November to 3 December, and the four group winners will progress to the finals on 2/3 and 4/5 May, with the hosts to be confirmed.

Team facts

• Palma won the title on debut last season, also facing Kairat in the main round. Barça, Benfica, Kairat and 2023 runners-up Sporting CP are past winners.
• Anderlecht made the semi-finals for the first time last season, losing to Sporting CP. The former Halle-Gooik are the only remaining contenders other than the five past winners to have reached the final four.
• Kairat are the first club to enter 20 seasons of UEFA futsal competition. Their last main round games made them the first to play 100 matches in UEFA futsal club competition.
• Sporting CP's 6-2 victory against Olmissum in their last main round game meant that they equalled Inter FS's record of 68 UEFA futsal club competition wins and moved two clear of Inter's old record of 410 goals (Benfica now have 409 goals). Nuno Dias of Sporting also became the first coach to record 50 competition wins with a single club (Jesús Velasco has 60 wins but with multiple teams).
• Teams that came through the preliminary round: Lubawa, Prishtina 01 and Riga. This is the first time under the current format (since 2017/18) that three teams have reached the elite round from the preliminary round. Lubawa only qualified from that round as best runners-up, finishing behind Prishtina 01 in their group on goals scored.
• Etoile Lavalloise, Hit Kyiv, Lubawa and Prishtina 01 are in their debut European seasons.
• Riga Futsal Club previously entered as Petro-w, and have made the elite round for the first time. In the preliminary round, their summer signing Ricardinho scored six times to reach 55 in the competition, overtaking previous record-holder André Vanderlei. He now has 59 after making it ten for the season, one off his personal best from 13 campaigns, set for Benfica in 2007/08.
• Riga have 58 goals from six games this season, the highest tally since FC Dynamo scored 66 in finishing as runners-up in 2004/05 (the season before, Action 21 Charleroi scored a record 76).
• Croatia, Kosovo, Latvia, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine have never had a team in the post-2007 final four under the current format (although Dobovec did play in the one-off eight-team finals of 2020/21, Shakhtar Donetsk made the two-legged semi-finals of 2005/06, and both Croatia's MNK Split (reaching the semi-finals) and Poland's Clearex Chorzów (going out in the group stage) were in the inaugural eight-team finals of 2001/02).
• Last season Eboli beat Riga (then called Petro-w) 10-3 in the main round.
• Benfica and Kairat have played six times before in this competition, most recently a 2-1 elite round win for the Portuguese club in Almaty last season that clinched their finals spot. Benfica also beat the two-time champions in the 2018/19 elite round 5-3, while Kairat won 6-2 in the 2020/21 quarter-finals and on penalties in the 2010/11 third-place play-off. That game ended 3-3, as too did a meeting in the 2005/06 second qualifying round (the forerunner to the elite round).
• Benfica beat Dobovec 8-1 in the main round this season and 6-1 in 2015/16.
• Sporting beat Anderlecht 7-1 in the semi-finals last May in Palma de Mallorca, as well as overcoming the then Halle-Gooik 3-2 in the 2017/18 elite round and 5-1 in the 2016/17 main round.
• Last season Loznica-Grad lost 4-2 to Sporting in the elite round and 2-1 to Anderlecht in the main round.
• Hit Kyiv defeated Olmissum 4-1 in the main round this season.

Draw procedure

• Teams were split into three seeding tiers based on main round results: Path A winners (position 1, four teams); Path A runners-up (position 2, four teams); and Path A third-placed teams and Path B group winners (positions 3 and 4, eight teams).
• No main round group winners could face the runners-up in their group.
• There was no country protection.
• Four clubs were selected as mini-tournament hosts and drawn separately, while maintaining their seedings.
• Based on previous decisions taken by the UEFA Executive Committee, Loznica-Grad 2018 from Serbia could not be drawn into the group with FC Prishtina 01 from Kosovo. In order to avoid this prohibited clash, if Loznica-Grad 2018 were drawn into the same group as Prishtina 01, the club drawn would be assigned to the next available slot.
• First of all the four hosts were drawn from Pot 1 and assigned to Groups A to D according to their respective seeding positions
• The six teams in Pot 2 (the third-placed team from Path A and the remaining Path B group winners) were then drawn into position 4 in the available groups before filling in position 3 from Goups A to D.
• The four teams in Pot 3 (Path A group runners-up) were then drawn and allocated Group A to D, being reassigned if drawn in the same group as the winners of their main round group.
• The two remaining Path A group winners were then drawn from Pot 4 into position 1 in the available Groups from A to D.

Seeding pots

Pot 1: Hosts

Sporting CP (POR, seeding position 1)
Mallorca Palma Futsal (ESP, holders, 1)
Riga Futsal Club (LVA, 4)
Prishtina 01 (KOS, 4)

Pot 2: Path A third-placed teams/Path B group winners, seeding positions 3 and 4

Olmissum (CRO)
Loznica-Grad 2018 (SRB)
Haladás (HUN)
Dobovec (SVN)
Lubawa (POL)
Città di Eboli (ITA)

Pot 3: Path A group runners-up, seeding position 2

Hit Kyiv (UKR)
Sporting Anderlecht Futsal (BEL)
Kairat Almaty (KAZ)
Etoile Lavalloise (FRA)

Pot 4: Path A group winners, seeding position 1

Barça (ESP)
Benfica (POR)