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1 .32 teams participated in the group competition and were divided into eight groups with four teams in each group. After the group stage is the knockout stage, the third place in the eight groups in the group stage will enter the European League, which is the original UEFA Cup.
2. Admission criteria for teams: The number of teams directly entering the group stage is 22 (265,438+0 teams+defending champions), and three teams from the three football associations with the highest points in UEFA will directly enter the group stage. The Football Association, ranked 4th to 6th, has two teams each. The Football Association ranked 7th to 12 has a team directly.
3. Before the group stage, there will be four rounds of qualifiers (the fourth round is a play-off), all of which are home and away two rounds of elimination, and the other ten places will be decided to enter the group stage. There are two ways to participate in the Champions League qualifiers: the champion way and the ranking way.
1, Champion Method: In the first round of the qualifiers, the six teams with UEFA points ranking 48 to 53 will be divided into three teams for two rounds of home and away elimination. Three champions entered the second round of qualifiers, and the champions of the 3 1 Football Association (except Liechtenstein) ranked by UEFA from 16 to 47 directly entered the second round of qualifiers. In the second qualifying round, 34 teams were eliminated in pairs of 17, and the winner of 17 entered the third qualifying round. The champions ranked by UEFA from 13 to 15 directly entered the third round, and 20 teams were eliminated in 10 pairs. 10 The winning team entered the play-off (the fourth round of qualifiers), which was divided into two rounds of home and away elimination, and five winners entered the Champions League group stage.
2. Ranking method: The 6th runner-up of UEFA and the 9th runner-up of UEFA entered the third qualifying round directly with 15. This 10 team was divided into five pairs for elimination, and the winners of the five pairs entered the play-offs together with the runner-up of the Football Association ranked 1 3 in Europe and the runner-up of the Football Association ranked 4-5. 10 teams were also eliminated in five pairs, and the winners of the five pairs entered the Champions League group stage.
4. Teams that enter the qualifiers through championship and ranking methods will not meet in the qualifiers.
5. The teams eliminated in the third qualifying round will enter the play-offs of the European League (the fourth qualifying round).
Sixth, the third place in the eight groups of the Champions League group stage will enter the knockout stage of the top 32 of the European League, and the four teams with the best results will be listed as seed teams together with the first place in each group of the UEFA Cup group stage.
7. The first knockout round of the Champions League will be held in four weeks instead of the original two weeks. Make full use of the match days reserved for UEFA club matches in February and March to increase the chances of live broadcast of matches.
8. The Champions League final will be changed to the weekend, and the kick-off time will be 20:45 Central European Time.
9. The Champions League play-offs will enjoy the same cooperation rights as the group matches.