Format Explained: Draw, format, dates and more

Europe’s elite club competition takes on a new format when the 2024/25 tournament gets underway after the qualification rounds.

With the prestigious tournament set to embark on a new era, here’s everything you need to know about the new format for this iconic competition.

Farewell to the round robin

UEFA have decided to ditch the old home-and-away round-robin system, where four teams would play each other twice each to see which two would progress to the UEFA Champions League knockout stages.

This season, UEFA have brought in the “Swiss system” which will see all the teams playing in a single league table.

All teams will play eight fixtures against different teams, with all sides playing eight games during this league phase of the competition.

How will the fixtures work in 2024/25?

In the old format, each team would play the other three clubs in their group home and away. Under the new format, teams will have a fixture list drawn that will see them play only eight of the 36 teams, and either home or away, not both.

Clubs will still be seeded as before, but teams will also face fixtures against two sides in their pot (as well as two teams from the other pots), meaning we'll see a number of mouthwatering heavyweight clashes early in the competition.

How does qualification work?

Qualification to the league phase itself is broadly unchanged from seasons past for making the old group stage.

To allow for the four additional teams for this season, two European leagues were given an extra two spaces with two more slots allocated elsewhere.

The majority of teams will have to go through qualifying, either via the 'Champions Path' or the 'League Path'.

Qualification from the league phase will be automatically awarded to the top eight teams after the conclusion of all fixtures. Teams placed 9th-24th will play in the knockout round play-offs. This will be a two-legged tie, with the highest-placed teams seeded and drawn against the unseeded lower-placed teams.

The winners will then be unseeded in the last 16, where they will face the sides who finished in the top eight of the league phase, with the rest of the competition unchanged from there.

What are the dates for the 2024/25 season?

The league phase matches will take place between September and January.

Matches in the UEFA Champions League will still be played in the early hours on Wednesdays and Thursdays as normal for Australian viewers, though it will have one 'exclusive' matchweek, where there are no UEFA Europa League or UEFA Conference League matches, and on this week, the Champions League will host matches on the mornings of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

For the final matchday of the UEFA Champions League league phase, all games will be played at the same time.

Matchday 1	18th-20th September 2024
Matchday 2	2nd-3rd October 2024
Matchday 3	23rd-24th October 2024
Matchday 4	6th-7th November 2024
Matchday 5	27th-28th November 2024
Matchday 6	11th-12th December 2024
Matchday 7	22nd-23rd January 2025
Matchday 8	30th January 2025
Knockout round play-offs	12th-13th February 2025; 19th-20th February 2025
Round of 16	5th-6th March 2025; 12th-13th March 2025
Quarter-finals	9th-10th April 2025; 16th-17th April 2025
Semi-finals	30th April-1st May 2025; 7th-8th May 2025
Final	1st June 2025

When are the draws for 2024/25?

Full draw dates can be found below, with all of the knockout rounds after the play-off being drawn at the same time.

Round	Date
First qualifying round	18th June 2024
Second qualifying round	19th June 2024
Third qualifying round	22nd July 2024
Play-offs	5th August 2024
League phase	29th August 2024
Knockout round play-offs	31st January 2025
Round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals	21st February 2025