CROSSING OVER

Tottenham Hotspur who are the current Premier League representatives of the Europa Conference League can qualify for the Europa League even if they finish in 10th place but win the Conference League.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW: EUROPA CONFERENCE LEAGUE

"THERE WAS A WIDESPREAD DEMAND BY ALL CLUBS TO INCREASE THEIR CHANCES OF PARTICIPATING MORE REGULARLY IN EUROPEAN COMPETITION. THIS HAS BEEN ACHIEVED WITH A STRATEGIC APPROACH AND IN ACCORDANCE WITH UEFA’S OBJECTIVE OF HAVING BOTH MORE QUALITY AND MORE INCLUSIVITY IN OUR CLUB COMPETITIONS.”

ABOVE: A new trophy for a new tournament.

BRAND NEW READY

Starting from the 2021/22 season, there will be a new UEFA competition for men’s club football that has been called the UEFA Europa Conference League. As the summer approaches, we look at what the new competition is about and how it will affect the UEFA Champions League and Europa League.

WHAT IS THE UEFA CONFERENCE LEAGUE?

The UEFA Conference League is a new European club tournament that will begin this summer. It is a third season-long UEFA men’s football club competition that is expected to run from 2021 to 2024. Plans for the tournament were approved in a 2018 meeting in Dublin with UEFA confirming the name of the tournament to be UEFA Conference League a year later. Before then, the working name adopted for the competition was Europa League 2.

WHY IS IT BEING INTRODUCED?

UEFA has cited “inclusiveness” and “more participation” as the reason behind its introduction of a third tournament for the men category of European club football. The European football governing body created the competition to give teams from smaller nations, who would usually not make the group stage of the Champions League and Europa League a greater chance of participation.

ACCORDING TO UEFA PRESIDENT ALEKSANDER CEFERIN

“The new UEFA club competition makes UEFA’s club competitions more inclusive than ever before. There will be more matches for more clubs, with more associations represented in the group stages. “There was a widespread demand by all clubs to increase their chances of participating more regularly in European competition. This has been achieved with a strategic approach and in accordance with UEFA’s objective of having both more quality and more inclusivity in our club competitions.” The new competition will ensure that at least 34 UEFA national associations are represented in the group stage of one or more competitions. This means that clubs that were missing out before now from UEFA deep pockets can do so starting from this summer. According to UEFA, the new structure allows a minimum of 14 domestic champions in the UEFA Champions League group stage. This leaves room for at least eight and 11 domestic champions in the UEFA Europa League group stage, and between nine and 12 domestic champions in the UEFA Europa Conference League group stage. This way, all associations and eligible teams have an opportunity to play continental football. And UEFA has also stated that this does not pose any advantage to the bigger leagues as “all member associations will have access to all three club competitions, and all associations’ quotas will remain unchanged.”

WILL IT IMPACT THE OTHER COMPETITIONS?

There is a fear that the introduction of the UEFA Europa Conference League will negatively affect the UEFA competitions. But that is not the case here as the new league will run concurrently with the other UEFA leagues. However, it will alter the current arrangement of the group stage of the UEFA Europa League which will now see teams reduced from 48 to 32 and the groups brought down to eight. This way eight UEFA Europa League group winners progress automatically to the round of 16. Additional knockout round play-offs between Europa League group runners-up and the eight third-ranked teams of the UEFA Champions League groups will then determine who joins progress to the next stage of the Europa League. And so, the teams who crash out of this knockout stage will then join in the knockout stage of the UEFA Europa Conference League. Qualification for the UEFA Europa Conference League group stage will be by UEFA current coefficient system which assigns a certain number of clubs to each league. The arrangement will see 11 or 12 teams qualify directly via their domestic associations while an additional ten teams will come through UEFA Europa League qualifying and a further ten from UEFA Champions League qualifying.

BELOW: Aleksander Ceferin speaks at a presentation for uefa

BOTTOM RIGHT: Arena Kombëtare, the future site of the very first Europa Conference League Finals WHAT DO THE WINNERS GET?

The winner of the UECL will automatically qualify for a place in the following season’s UEFA Europa League group stage assuming they have not qualified for the UEFA Champions League via their domestic competition. For example, Tottenham Hotspur who are the current Premier League representatives of the Europa Conference League can qualify for the Europa League even if they finish in 10th place but win the Conference League. This is akin to what currently happens in the Europa League and Champions League where winners are automatically granted a place in the next edition irrespective of their domestic league finish.

WHAT DAY WILL IT PLAYED?

The new tournament will be played on Thursday evenings alongside the Europa League. FIRST FINAL: TIRANA (ALBANIA)

The first final of the Europa Conference League will be hosted in the Albanian city of Tirana. The venue will be the 21,690-capacity National Arena (Arena Kombëtare) and it will be played on 25 May 2022. The stadium was built, with the help of UEFA’s HatTrick assistance programme and opened in November 2019 with a European Qualifier between Albania and France.