2024–25 UEFA Champions League

The 2024–25 UEFA Champions League is the 70th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 33rd season since it was rebranded from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League. This is the first season under a new format, which has 36 participating teams that played eight games each against different opponents in a league phase, all the teams being ranked in a joint group. This will increase the total number of matches played in the competition from 125 to 189 (excluding qualifying rounds).
The final will be played on 31 May 2025 at Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany. The winners of the 2024–25 UEFA Champions League will automatically qualify for the 2025–26 UEFA Champions League league phase, the 2025 FIFA Intercontinental Cup finals, the 2029 FIFA Club World Cup group stage, and earn the right to play against the winners of the 2024–25 UEFA Europa League in the 2025 UEFA Super Cup.
Real Madrid are the defending champions, having won their record-extending 15th title the previous season.
A total of 81 teams from 53 of the 55 UEFA member associations are participating in the 2024–25 UEFA Champions League (the exceptions being Liechtenstein, which did not organise a domestic league, and Russia, which was suspended). The association ranking based on the UEFA association coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:
For the 2024–25 UEFA Champions League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2023 UEFA association coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2018–19 to 2022–23. The table reflects Russia's ongoing suspension from UEFA.
Apart from the allocation based on the association coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below:
The information here reflects the suspension of Russia in European football, and so the following changes to the default access list were made:
As the Champions League title holders (Real Madrid) qualified via their domestic league's standard berth allocation, the following changes to the default access list were made:
As the Europa League title holders (Atalanta) qualified via their domestic league's standard berth allocation, the following changes to the default access list were made:
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
The second qualifying round, third qualifying round and play-off round were divided into Champions Path (CH) and League Path (LP).
The schedule of the competition is as follows. Compared to past seasons, one "exclusive week" was introduced in which Thursday was also a matchday. All matches in other weeks will be played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays apart from the final.
The draw for the first qualifying round was held on 18 June 2024. The first legs were played on 9 and 10 July, and the second legs were played on 16 and 17 July 2024.
The winners of the ties advanced to the Champions Path second qualifying round. 12 of the 14 losers were transferred to the Conference League Champions Path second qualifying round and 2 were transferred to the Conference League Champions Path qualifying and received a bye to the third qualifying round.
The draw for the second qualifying round was held on 19 June 2024. The first legs were played on 23 and 24 July, and the second legs were played on 30 and 31 July 2024.
The winners of the ties advanced to the third qualifying round of their respective path. The Champions Path losers were transferred to the Europa League Champions Path third qualifying round, while the League Path losers were transferred to the Europa League Main Path third qualifying round.
The draw for the third qualifying round was held on 22 July 2024. The first legs were played on 6 and 7 August, and the second legs were played on 13 August 2024.
The winners of the ties advanced to the play-off round of their respective paths. The Champions Path losers were transferred to the Europa League play-off round, while the League Path losers were transferred to the Europa League league phase.
The draw for the play-off round was held on 5 August 2024. The first legs were played on 20 and 21 August, and the second legs were played on 27 and 28 August 2024.
The winners of the ties advanced to the league phase. The losers were transferred to the Europa League league phase.
The league phase draw for the 2024–25 UEFA Champions League took place at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco on 29 August 2024, 18:00 CEST. The 36 teams were divided into four pots of nine teams each based on their UEFA club coefficient, except for the Champions League title holders, who were automatically placed as the top seed in pot 1.
The 36 teams were manually drawn and then automated software digitally drew their eight different opponents at random, determining which of their matches were at home and which ones away. Each team faced two opponents from each of the four pots, one at home and one away. Teams could not face opponents from their own association, and could only be drawn against a maximum of two sides from the same association.
Brest and Girona made their debut appearances in European football. Aston Villa, Bologna and Slovan Bratislava made their debut appearances since the introduction of the group stage.
A total of 16 national associations were represented in the league phase.
The top eight ranked teams received a bye to the round of 16. The teams ranked from 9th to 24th will contest the knockout phase play-offs, with the teams ranked from 9th to 16th seeded for the draw. Teams ranked from 25th to 36th were eliminated from all competitions, with no access to the 2024–25 UEFA Europa League.
In the knockout phase, teams will play against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final. The bracket structure for the knockout phase is partially fixed in advance using seeding, with teams' positions in the bracket determined by the final standings in the league phase. In the knockout phase, there is no country protection, with teams from the same association able to face each other in any round. Teams can also face opponents they played during the league phase.
The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:
The draw for the knockout phase play-offs was held on 31 January 2025, 12:00 CET. The first legs were played on 11 and 12 February, and the second legs were played on 18 and 19 February 2025.
The draw for the round of 16 was held on 21 February 2025, 12:00 CET. The first legs were played on 4 and 5 March, and the second legs were played on 11 and 12 March 2025.
The draw for the order of the quarter-final legs was held on 21 February 2025, 12:00 CET, after the round of 16 draw. The first legs will be played on 8 and 9 April, and the second legs will be played on 15 and 16 April 2025.
The draw for the order of the semi-final legs was held on 21 February 2025, 12:00 CET, after the round of 16 and quarter-final draws. The first legs will be played on 29 and 30 April, and the second legs will be played on 6 and 7 May 2025.
The final will be played on 31 May 2025 at the Allianz Arena in Munich. The winner of semi-final 1 will be designated as the "home" team for administrative purposes.
Statistics exclude qualifying rounds and play-off round.