2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League
The 2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League will be the first season of the UEFA Europa Conference League, Europe's tertiary club football tournament organised by UEFA.
| Tournament details | |
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| Dates | Qualifying: July – August 2021 Competition proper: September 2021 – May 2022 |
| Teams | Competition proper: 32+8 Total: 138+46 (from 55 associations) |
The final will be played in May 2022. The winners of the 2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League will automatically qualify for the 2022–23 UEFA Europa League group stage, unless they manage to qualify for the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League group stage.[1]
This season will be the first since 1998–99 (the last season that the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was played) where three major European club competitions (UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and the newly created UEFA Europa Conference League) are organised by UEFA. The three competition finals will be played in the same week on a Wednesday (Europa Conference League), Thursday (Europa League) and Saturday (Champions League).[2]
Association team allocation
A total of 184 teams from all 55 UEFA member associations participate in the 2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League. The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:
- Associations 1–5 each have one team qualify.
- Associations 6–15 and 51–55 each have two teams qualify.
- Associations 16–50 (except Liechtenstein) each have three teams qualify.
- Liechtenstein have one team qualify (Liechtenstein organises only a domestic cup and no domestic league).
- Moreover, 20 teams eliminated from the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League and 26 teams eliminated from the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League are transferred to the Europa Conference League.
Association ranking
For the 2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2020 UEFA country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2015–16 to 2019–20.[3]
Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations may have additional teams participating in the Europa Conference League, as noted below:
- (UCL) – Additional teams transferred from the UEFA Champions League
- (UEL) – Additional teams transferred from the UEFA Europa League
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Distribution
The following is the default access list.[4]
| Teams entering in this round | Teams advancing from previous round | Teams transferred from Champions League or Europa League | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First qualifying round (72 teams) |
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| Second qualifying round | Champions Path (20 teams) |
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| Main Path (90 teams) |
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| Third qualifying round | Champions Path (10 teams) |
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| Main Path (52 teams) |
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| Play-off round | Champions Path (10 teams) |
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| Main Path (34 teams) |
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| Group stage (32 teams) |
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| Preliminary knockout round (16 teams) |
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| Knockout phase (16 teams) |
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In the default access list, three teams eliminated from the Europa League third qualifying round (Main Path) are transferred to the Europa Conference League play-off round (Main Path). However, since the Europa League group stage berth reserved for the title holders of the Europa Conference League is not used for this season, only two are transferred for this season. As a result, changes to the access list will be made, to be officially confirmed by UEFA.
Changes will be made to the access list above, if any of the teams that qualify for the Europa League or Europa Conference League via their domestic competitions also qualify for the Champions League as the Champions League or Europa League title holders, or if there are fewer teams transferred from the Champions League and/or Europa League due to access list changes. In any case where a spot in the Europa Conference League is vacated, teams of the highest-ranked associations in earlier rounds will be promoted accordingly.
Teams
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
- CW: Cup winners
- 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, etc.: League position of the previous season
- LC: League cup winners
- RW: Regular season winners
- PW: End-of-season Europa Conference League play-offs winners
- UCL: Transferred from the Champions League
- Q1: Losers from the first qualifying round
- PR: Losers from the preliminary round (F: final; SF: semi-finals)
- UEL: Transferred from the Europa League
- GS: Third-placed teams from the group stage
- PO: Losers from the play-off round
- CH/MP Q3: Losers from the third qualifying round (Champions/Main Path)
The second qualifying round, third qualifying round and play-off round are divided into Champions Path (CH) and Main Path (MP).
Schedule
To be confirmed. Matches are scheduled for Thursdays (including the final), though exceptionally can take place on Tuesdays or Wednesdays due to scheduling conflicts. Scheduled kick-off times are 16:30 (for a limited number of matches), 18:45 and 21:00 CEST/CET.[5]
See also
- 2021–22 UEFA Champions League
- 2021–22 UEFA Europa League
- 2021–22 UEFA Women's Champions League
- 2021–22 UEFA Youth League
References
- "UEFA Europa Conference League: what is it? When does it start? Who's involved?". UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. 31 October 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
- "UEFA Executive Committee approves new club competition". UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. 2 December 2018. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
- "Country coefficients 2019/20". UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. 2020. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
- "Access list 2021–24" (PDF). UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
- "Format change for 2020/21 UEFA Nations League". UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. 24 September 2019.