UEFA will launch a women's "Europa League" for 2025/26

top1whoisman

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UEFA will, as expected, launch a new women's European club competition that will start in 2025/26. The name and the brand will be released later. The form of the competition will be a bit like the old (men's) UEFA Cup. All six rounds are knockout rounds and will consist of two-legged ties, including the final.

Automatic entry for:

Third placed teams from leagues (UEFA) ranked 8-13
Second placed teams from leagues (UEFA) ranked 18-24

Also, the teams who finish second or third in the first UWCL qualifying rounds (11 mini tournaments) will enter this competition.

24 teams will play in the first round.

32 teams in the second round. This might seem a bit confusing, but the teams who are knocked out in the last qualifying round of UWCL will enter this new competition. They start from the second round.

Then it's Ro16, QF, SF and the Final.

Finally, from United's point of view nothing changes. We still have to finish in the top three to make it to Europe. Last season we would've dropped down to this competition after we lost to PSG. Even though selfishly I'd like to see the 4th WSL team to play in this one, I agree with UEFA that this will serve the smaller countries and their leagues more. Those countries and leagues are the ones who need all the support and help they can get, not the biggest ones.
 
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I'm happy about this. First thing is that this will hopefully improve the overall level of football played by women and help small clubs and leagues financially as well as competitively. The second thing is that the Finnish league is ranked 24th (well 25th but Russia) so the second-placed team will qualify for the first round of the new competition.
 
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We had in depth analysis about it already regarding our Estonian national team, it's a essential thing for smaller nations to get more top games and experience.
 
Rood said:
Should give a place to the cup winners in each country
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I think that would be an idea worth considering, although I’m pretty sure most cup winners in big countries are already in the CL.

And in small countries, in my personal opinion it’s often more of an achievement to finish 2nd in the league.

Perhaps the reason they haven’t done this is the fact that not all countries have a domestic cup competition.
 
top1whoisman said:
UEFA will, as expected, launch a new women's European club competition that will start in 2025/26. The name and the brand will be released later. The form of the competition will be a bit like the old (men's) UEFA Cup. All six rounds are knockout rounds and will consist of two-legged ties, including the final.

Automatic entry for:

Third placed teams from leagues (UEFA) ranked 8-13
Second placed teams from leagues (UEFA) ranked 18-24

Also, the teams who finish second or third in the first UWCL qualifying rounds (mini tournaments) will enter this competition.

24 teams will play in the first round.

32 teams in the second round. This might seem a bit confusing, but the teams who are knocked out in the last qualifying round of UWCL will enter this new competition. They start from the second round.

Then it's Ro16, QF, SF and the Final.

Finally, from United's point of view nothing changes. We still have to finish in the top three to make it to Europe. Last season we would've dropped down to this competition after we lost to PSG. Even though selfishly I'd like to see the 4th WSL team to play in this one, I agree with UEFA that this will serve the smaller countries and their leagues more. Those countries and leagues are the ones who need all the support and help they can get, not the biggest ones.
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Don't the top 3 go into the CL anyway from our league or at least two into the qualifying rounds and league winners automatically? It says third place teams from leagues 8-13. What ranks is the WSL?
 
DomesticTadpole said:
Don't the top 3 go into the CL anyway from our league or at least two into the qualifying rounds and league winners automatically? It says third place teams from leagues 8-13. What ranks is the WSL?
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Yes. If the second and third-placed teams from the WSL get knocked out in the last qualifying round, like we did last season, they drop down to the new competition. Arsenal got knocked out at an earlier round than we did, so they wouldn't have qualified for the "Europa League".

England are 4th in the association ranking for this season. 8-13 are currently Denmark, Portugal, Netherlands, Norway, Scotland and Austria. I think it's a good approach that this not created to serve the big leagues and get 4th teams from big countries into this. And one of those big clubs dropping down from the UWCL will probably win this anyway.
 
Is the Champions League staying at 16 teams? If they were serious about growing the game, they should expand it to 32 teams and use the tournament format they have in the men’s tournament - or whatever amount of teams they need to make it work.

Sure you’d get some one sided games, but no more one sided than Dinamo losing 9-0 or whatever it was. And the smaller teams would be guaranteed a few competitive games. The only excuse is UEFA isn’t willing to cover the expenses.
 
Dan_F said:
Is the Champions League staying at 16 teams? If they were serious about growing the game, they should expand it to 32 teams and use the tournament format they have in the men’s tournament - or whatever amount of teams they need to make it work.

Sure you’d get some one sided games, but no more one sided than Dinamo losing 9-0 or whatever it was. And the smaller teams would be guaranteed a few competitive games. The only excuse is UEFA isn’t willing to cover the expenses.
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There not enough money in it yet. Expand too fast and you end up costing the clubs too much money. I remember a few years back in the (men's) Europa League - Getafe nearly dropped out because the income wasn't enough to cover their costs. They basically got ordered to play by La Liga but took a bare minimum squad/staff to aways and only opened part of the stadium.

The trouble is last season's WCL missed out on teams with a big commercial pull - United and Arsenal for example - so there's a chicken and egg thing there. This season they'll be missing Atletico and PSG but they do have Chelsea, Arsenal, City and Celtic which they'll be happy about commercially.

Even so I'm surprised they've gone with a Europa League before expanding the CL. Hopefully it'll avoid some of the mismatches while expanding visibility. Visibility is a strange beast though. Last night's Arsenal v Hacken qualifier had minimal TV coverage. I don't know how the Europa is going to do better.
 
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