What will the new formula look like?

From the 2024-2025 season, the tournament will increase from 32 to 36 teams, good news especially for France which should inherit the ticket promised to the fifth nation in the UEFA index, the place currently occupied by the country. world champions.

Two other places will be awarded to the two nations with the best combined performance in European competitions the previous season (this season it would be England and the Netherlands).

In the classification of their championship, the first team not qualified for the C1 will win this bonus ticket.

Finally, one last ticket will go to a national champion, thanks to the extension from four to five of the number of qualifiers via the champion path.

Intangible since the 2003-2004 season, the group stage must be radically overhauled, with the disappearance of the eight groups of four teams which faced each other in a round trip over six days.

Instead, the 36 teams will compete in a championship that brings them all together, according to the "Swiss system": each will face eight different opponents in a single confrontation, with four home matches and four away.

Parisians Marquinhos and Marco Verratti stop Manchester City striker Jack Grealish in Group A of C1 at the Parc des Princes, September 28, 2021 FRANCK FIFE AFP / Archives

The top eight in the final standings will qualify for the round of 16 and the clubs ranked 9th to 24th will compete for the other eight places, via a two-round play-off.

The knockout phase will remain unchanged: the clubs compete in round-trip matches from the round of 16, until the final played on a single match.

The Europa League and the Europa League Conference will follow the same model, with 36 participants as well.

Where does the Swiss system come from?

Unprecedented in football, this formula designed by a Swiss teacher, Julius Müller, was used for the first time during the Swiss Chess Championship in Zurich in 1889.

The idea was to organize a tournament bringing together a large number of opponents - there were 74 players in Zurich - but limiting the number of confrontations.

It is therefore a compromise between the formula "everyone meets everyone", guaranteeing the fairest result, and a table with direct elimination, fast but considered too random.

This system, which has since been available in a multitude of variants, is also used in Go and Scrabble competitions, in the online shooter game Counter Strike and during the European Pétanque Championships.

What are the advantages ?

The group stage should include 63 more matches than today, which would increase the entire competition to 189 matches instead of 125.

UEFA has already reaped the benefits in terms of TV rights, awarded at the start of 2022, which have jumped 50% compared to 2018-2019, to reach five billion euros annually for the period 2024-2027 for the whole European competitions.

The qualifiers, who will each benefit from eight guaranteed matches instead of six today, will also be able to count on higher ticketing revenues, even if they do not win a single match.

UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin at the C1 draw ceremony in Istanbul, August 26, 2021 OZAN KOSE AFP / Archives

In terms of sporting interest, the multiplication of confrontations during the first phase allows more posters between big clubs before the knockout phase.

Finally, the Swiss system offers flexibility: the number of participants as the number of confrontations can be adjusted in the future, without changing the overall formula.

Is it unanimous?

The powerful European Club Association (ECA) welcomed "the jump from 96 to 108 of the clubs involved" in the three club competitions - C1, C3 and C4 -, with "at least 37 national champions" represented out of the 55 federations that includes the European confederation.

But there is the question of the overload of the calendar because an increased number of matches leads to more injuries or mental fatigue among players.

"From a calendar point of view, the red line was probably crossed several years ago," said Jonas Baer-Hoffman, general secretary of players' union Fifpro.

Some critics also fear that the eight group matches will favor the big clubs a little more, by reducing the sporting hazard, when they already concentrate revenue and trophies.

© 2022 AFP