European soccer’s premier club competition, the Champions League, is remaking itself.
After more than a generation in its current form, the Champions League is about to become an actual league for the first time. Organizers say the changes will produce better matchups, fewer meaningless games, and more drama. Critics say it’s about what these kinds of changes are always about: money.
The new-look Champions League is set to be rubber-stamped and revealed by the leaders of European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, perhaps as soon as their meeting this week. What will emerge is a competition expanded to 36 teams from its current 32, and one that dispenses with its long-established group-stage format in favor of a single league table that will decide who advances to the knockout rounds.
The benefits for organizers are obvious: By the time the winner has lifted the European Cup, the competition will have produced 100 new games to sell to broadcasters, and the finalists will have played at least 17 matches, four more than under the current format.
European soccer officials have promoted the changes by arguing the new format will add more excitement, and ensure that nearly all the teams will have a chance to make the knockout rounds right up to their final games. They have spent less time highlighting the added workload on weary players, or that they plan to reserve two places in the league for so-called historically significant teams who might have otherwise failed to qualify.
But first, everyone will have to learn how it works.
How the Champions League works now
Before we explain the new setup, here is a brief look at how the tournament unfolds now, using the current season and teams.
The knockout round that follows resembles the latter stages of the World Cup or the N.C.A.A. basketball championship, except that paired teams play home and away matches to determine a winner, rather than a single elimination game.
How the new format will work
UEFA’s new plan does away with the group stage in favor of a single Champions League table, a format familiar to anyone who follows a domestic league.
By placing all the participants into one 36-team table, the organizers had two goals. The first was economic: more games meant more revenue from ticket sales, sponsorships and broadcast rights. The second, more altruistic objective, was to increase the chances that the later games would matter, and matter to more teams.
In the new format, each team will play 10 games against a group of opponents diverse in both quality and geography. The league setup is not perfect; not all teams will meet, and there will inevitably be grumbling about harder or weaker draws.
But its length could help negate minor injuries as decisive factors, and could ensure that nearly all participants still have a shot at making the knockouts — or at least to prevent an opponent from advancing — right up until the last round of games.
Here’s how it might work.
The 36 teams
The spots in the 36-team field will almost all be awarded through existing qualifying matches and domestic league performance in the previous season.
A draw, with the teams placed in one of four pots based on their previous performances in the Champions League and the second-tier Europa League competition, will match each club with 10 opponents from throughout the table.
Let’s use Bayern Munich, last season’s champion, as an example. Bayern would play each of these opponents once.
Five of the games would be home matches and five would be away.
Groups are out, a single table is in
Once they are announced, the changes will be final, but the grumbling about the new Champions League will continue. Some of the changes — like the carveouts for legacy clubs — will infuriate those who believe participation should be on merit alone.
Others in Europe’s top leagues had been militant in opposing the possibility of extra games. Still more will oppose any alterations to a beloved soccer competition on principle, and especially because UEFA appears to have bowed to most of the demands of a group of elite clubs, who’ll likely only grow richer.
But there will be plenty of time for those complaints. The changes would not take effect until 2024.
