Title: 2021–22 UEFA Champions League Content: The 2021–22 UEFA Champions League was the 67th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA. Real Madrid defeated Liverpool 1–0 in the final, which was played at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France, for a record-extending 14th title, and their fifth in nine years. It was originally scheduled to be played at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany. However, due to the postponement and relocation of the 2020 final, the final hosts were moved back a year, with Saint Petersburg scheduled to host the 2022 final. Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the final was eventually moved to Saint-Denis. As the winners, Real Madrid automatically qualified for the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League group stage, and also earned the right to play against the winners of the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League, Eintracht Frankfurt, in the 2022 UEFA Super Cup. Additionally, the winners typically qualify for the annual FIFA Club World Cup. However, the tournament's status remains uncertain, following FIFA's proposal for a format improvement. Chelsea were the defending champions, but were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Real Madrid. This season was the first since 1999–2000 (the first season after the end of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup) where three major European club competitions (UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and the newly created UEFA Europa Conference League) are organised by UEFA. No changes were made to the format of the Champions League, but teams that were eliminated from the preliminary round and first qualifying round of the Champions League were now transferred to the Europa Conference League instead of the Europa League. On 24 June 2021, UEFA approved the proposal to remove the away goals rule in all UEFA club competitions, which had been used since 1965. If in a two-legged tie two teams scored the same number of aggregate goals, the winner of the tie would not be decided by the number of away goals scored by each team but always by 30 minutes of extra time, and if the two teams scored the same amount of goals in extra time, the winner would be decided by a penalty shoot-out. ==Association team allocation== A total of 80 teams from 54 of the 55 UEFA member associations participated in the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League (the exception being Liechtenstein, which did not organise a domestic league). The association ranking based on the UEFA association coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association: *Associations 1–4 each had four teams qualify. *Associations 5–6 each had three teams qualify. *Associations 7–15 each had two teams qualify. *Associations 16–55 (except Liechtenstein) each had one team qualify. *The winners of the 2020–21 UEFA Champions League and 2020–21 UEFA Europa League were each given an additional entry if they did not qualify for the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League through their own domestic league. (As Chelsea, the Champions League title holders, did qualify through their own domestic league this season, the additional entry for the Champions League title holders was re-allocated.) ===Association ranking=== For the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2020 UEFA association coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2015–16 to 2019–20. Apart from the allocation based on the association coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below: * – Additional berth for UEFA Europa League title holders