UEFA introduced a new Champions League format for this season, as no doubt all of you are aware.
They moved from eight groups of four, where two clubs from each group progressed to the last 16 knockout round.
To this 2024/25 season where it is a ‘Swiss’ league of 36 clubs, which then (eventually) produces the last 16.
UEFA really believe that they can fool all of the people all of the time, these Champions League changes perfectly summing that up.
Let me explain.
This is from the official UEFA Champions League announcement explaining what now happens:
How will the Champions League format change from 2024/25?
The pivotal change in the reforms announced by the UEFA Executive Committee is the departure from the current format’s group stage system. The present Champions League group stage includes 32 participants divided into eight groups of four. From the 2024/25 season, 36 clubs will participate in the Champions League league phase (former group stage), giving four more sides the opportunity to compete against the best clubs in Europe. Those 36 clubs will participate in a single league competition in which all 36 competing clubs are ranked together.
Under the new format, teams will play eight matches in the new league phase (former group stage). They will no longer play three opponents twice – home and away – but will instead face fixtures against eight different teams, playing half of those matches at home and half of them away. To determine the eight different opponents, the teams will initially be ranked in four seeding pots. Each team will then be drawn to play two opponents from each of these pots, playing one match against a team from each pot at home, and one away.
This gives the opportunity for clubs to test themselves against a wider range of opponents and raises the prospect for fans of seeing the top teams go head to head more often and earlier in the competition. It will also result in more competitive matches for every club across the board.
How will teams reach the Champions League knockout phase?
The results of each match will decide the overall ranking in the new league, with three points for a win and one for a draw still applying.
The top eight sides in the league will qualify automatically for the round of 16, while the teams finishing in 9th to 24th place will compete in a two-legged knock-out phase play-off to secure their path to the last 16 of the competition. Teams that finish 25th or lower will be eliminated, with no access to the UEFA Europa League.
The new format, with all the teams ranked together in a single league, will mean that there is more to play for all the way through to the final night of the league phase.
In the knockout phase, the teams that finish between 9th and 16th will be seeded in the knockout phase play-off draw, meaning they will face a team placed 17th to 24th – with, in principle, the return leg at home. The eight clubs which prevail in the knockout phase play-offs will then progress to the round of 16, where they will each face one of the top-eight finishers, who will be seeded in the round of 16.
To strengthen the synergy between the league and knockout phases, and to provide more sporting incentive during the league phase, the pairings of the knockout phase will also be partly determined by the league phase rankings, with a draw which likewise determines and lays out the route for teams to reach the final.
From the round of 16 onwards, the competition will continue to follow its existing format of knockout rounds leading to the final staged at a neutral venue selected by UEFA.
All games before the final will continue to be played in midweek, recognising the importance of the domestic calendar of games across Europe, while the final will continue to be played on a Saturday.’
As I said earlier, UEFA really do believe that they can fool everybody all of the time.
These Champions League changes, along with those to the other European competitions, are simply a case of expanding their (UEFA’s) empire, reach, power and finances, whilst at the same time benefiting even more the clubs that are already the richest and most powerful.
Champions League Arch Newcastle
How many matches?
Before the European Cup was rebranded as the Champions League, to get from 32 to 16 clubs, this is what happened.
The 32 teams were put in the hat/bowl, then just like the FA Cup etc, the balls were pulled out in order and at random, anybody could play anybody, you ended up with 16 ties where they played each other home and away, with the 16 winners of these ties going through to the last 16.
So to move from the last 32 to the last 16, you had 32 matches on a home and away basis.
When the Champions League rebranding happened and things eventually settled down to the format we all now think of as the Champions League group stage, to move from 32 to 16 teams you had eight groups of four, playing home and away it meant six matches each group.
So to move from the last 32 to the last 16, it meant 48 group matches played in total.
Now we have this new ‘Swiss’ league format.
For no good reason, instead of 32 playing for a place in the final 16, it has been increased to 36 playing for a place in that final 16.
Off the top of your head, have a quick guess just how many matches this will now take, to go from 36 to the final 16?
Well, each of the 36 teams plays four home and four away matches to decide their final place in the ‘Swiss’ league table. That is 144 matches. However, you then have to add the 16 play-off matches for the teams that finish 9th to 24th, so that is 160 games in total to get from 36 to 16 teams.
So we have gone from the days of the European Cup where it took 32 matches to get from 32 teams to 16, to then 48 matches when it was eight Champions League groups of four, to now 160 (ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY) matches to get from the 36 team Swiss League to the final 16.
Honestly, it is just one big laughable stunt that has been pulled by UEFA with the full support of the most rich and powerful teams.
Qualifying for the last 16
UEFA are trying to tell us how great this new format is, how much fairer, gives all teams a great chance and so on.
If that is the case, why then do you need seeding?
People have been brainwashed down the years, the longer the Champions League went on, people forgetting exactly why there was seeding brought in and the group stages.
This was all about ensuring so many matches were played so that more money could be generated, as opposed to simple home and away knockout rounds all the way through. Then with seeding, the idea to increasingly make it easier for the same small group of clubs to reach the later stages year on year. I am baffled as to why anybody then is surprised when you have the same teams reaching the later stages season after season.
When it was a straight knockout all the way through back in the European Cup days, every match was important. If you lost the first leg by a couple of goals, then in vast majority of cases you wouldn’t turn it around in the second leg. When it became the Champions League group format, even if the elite teams lost a couple of matches by any number of goals, they could still easily qualify by even winning just three of their other four matches, especially/usually against the two weakest teams in the group who were seeded to finish third and fourth and be knocked out.
Now it is even worse with this Swiss League format. Basically, the more matches that are played, the advantage surely has to be with the clubs who are the richest and most powerful with the biggest squads of the best players. To get to the last 16 it was over just two matches in the European Cup days, then they had six matches in the CL groups, now it is eight in the Swiss League. The odd surprise defeat becomes increasingly irrelevant. Even if the rich and powerful don’t finish in the top eight and automatically go through, they are all but certain to then be in the next group of eight (finishing 9th to 16th) who then get the advantage of playing an almost certainly weaker team who finished between 17th and 24th in the league stage AND you get the advantage of the second leg at home.
Champions League Umbrella Newcastle United
Seeding
As I said above, people have now been brainwashed into thinking seeding is the norm in European competitions and so it is barely scrutinised or even talked about anymore.
Just think though if they announced doing the same in the FA Cup, that rather than anybody getting drawn against anybody in the third round in January, they went with saying the top eight in the Premier League couldn’t play each other?
If you think this would be an impossibility, my question would be why?
We repeatedly see that anything and everything can be justified by power and money, at least in the eyes of the richest and most powerful.
Just look at the Carabao Cup this season. Ironically, due to the impact of all these extra European matches due to the Swiss League format, it was declared that in one round, all of the clubs participating in the Champions League and Europa League, had to be kept apart from each other. So in that round those six were drawn out first and separately, with then the rest drawn out after wards, including the half dozen to face those CL and Europa League six.
Impact on the Premier League and English football competitions generally?
If you think that Carabao Cup draw will be just a one-off, then I reckon you must be naive in the extreme.
Surely, that type of thing will now just be used more and more.
The UEFA expansion of their competitions and so many more matches to be played in the Champions League and other competitions, will for sure squeeze and squeeze the Premier League and domestic competitions.
Just watch, only a question of time before the idea is pushed once again, especially by those clubs who qualify for European competitions most years, to reduce the Premier League to fewer clubs.
The squeeze will also get ever worse on the domestic cup competitions, FA Cup and League Cup. Everything pushed in favour of the Champions League, the elite clubs.
Excitement?
I don’t think it has totally really hit either for most people, just how much worse this Swiss League format is for the neutral.
However, I believe it is now dawning on more and more people as time goes on and the reality becomes more transparent.
This is how the Swiss League format Champions League table now looks on Thursday (12 December):
Champions League Table 12 December 2024 Top Champions League Table 12 December 2024 Bottom
Six games now played by each of the 36 clubs, another 36 league matches to play, before eight automatically qualify and 16 more matches for those in play-offs.
As you can see, the bottom ten teams (on four points or less) are either mathematically, or realistically, already knocked out with two games each to play. However, in reality, this was the case for them even with four matches still to play of the eight.
One of the really serious illusions/delusions is that this new ‘Swiss League’ format favours those who aren’t the self-appointed elite clubs. It is actually the absolute opposite.
The more matches there are, the more it favours those who are already the richest and most powerful.
PSG have only won two games and are on seven points after the six games.
Last season in the usual eight groups of four format, in five of the eight groups the second team had ten or more points. Whilst in another it was nine points, in the other two groups it was eight points the second club got.
So PSG would have already been out in the old format after their six group matches!
Instead, a win in either of their last two ‘Swiss League’ matches would surely guarantee them a place in the play-offs, meaning they would then still reach the last 16 if winning a two-leg pay-off, which they would almost certainly be big favourites to do so.
Look at Man City, only two wins from their six games and on eight points. They would also have been almost certainly knocked out now, if under the old six group matches format. Instead, just like PSG, I reckon they will for sure end up in the last 16 still, getting a win in one of their last two ‘league’ matches and then winning a two-leg play-off.
Pep Guardiola
Real Madrid, very likely they would also have been out now in the six matches group format, they have nine points and last season five of the eight groups the second team had ten points or more.
Conversely, look at say the likes of those clubs from 19th upwards, 10 points or more from six group matches would have all but certainly seen most/all of them already into the last 16. Yet instead for many of them, they have the fear/reality of ending up in a final ‘Swiss League’ placing of 9th-24th that will see them facing a play-off instead this season.
Like anything, if your own club is involved then you will naturally take a massive interest.
However, I have taken even less interest than normal in this new Champions League format.
For me, it is simply a case of just loads and loads more matches, which will end up with still pretty much all the usual suspects getting into the last 16 and beyond.
All the journalists, broadcasters, pundits are of course all going to be saying how great this new Champions League format is. It generates more cash, more paid work, more expenses paid trips overseas and so on.
When the initial draw was made and each of the 36 clubs found out who they would be playing in each of their eight matches, we were all supposed to get excited by who they’d been drawn against. Why? Simply loads more matches and even less chance of any shocks, surprise eliminations.
Compare that to back in the day, when any round of the European Cup could match any two clubs. Real Madrid v Liverpool, then at the same time two small unfancied clubs facing each other and one of them guaranteed to go through, whilst the anticipation that either Liverpool or Real Madrid would be going out at such an early stage.
Football should be all about excitement, the uncertainty, surprises, not knowing who is going to win, living on the edge.
Instead, the likes of UEFA, FIFA, the Premier League, want football now to be all about guarantees of as much money generated as possible, with as much of the power and wealth held by as few clubs as possible.
Nottingham Forest ending up fifth in the table (and ten points adrift of top) after fifteen Premier League matches is now seen as a bigger and more extraordinary shock by many these days, than it was when they came from nowhere under Brian Clough to win the league title and two European Cups.
ESL English Club Crests
Final thought
Just imagine if the disgraced six Premier League clubs had succeeded in their shameful plan to steal football, create a European Super League with the help of other shameless clubs on the continent, awarding themselves the right to play in the top European competition without having to qualify, whilst the rest of us were left with the crumbs.
These Swiss League formats in European competitions are well on the way to what the European Super League would have delivered, in terms of so many matches that neutrals have so little interest in.
Interesting to see what happens next, if/when UEFA declare this Swiss League format has been so ‘successful’ that surely it has to be expanded further…