The 2024–25 UEFA Europa League will be the 54th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 16th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. This will be the first season played under a new format, which replaces the 32-team group stage with a 36-team league phase.[1] This will increase the total number of matches played in the competition proper from 141 to 189. The new format also does not allow teams to transfer from the Champions League knockout phase to the Europa League knockout phase, and thus Europa League winners (Atalanta in the 2023–24 edition) cannot defend their title as the winner of the Europa League automatically qualifies for the Champions League league phase.
The final will be played on 21 May 2025 at San Mamés stadium in Bilbao, Spain.[2] The winners of the 2024–25 UEFA Europa League will automatically qualify for the 2025–26 UEFA Champions League league phase and earn the right to play against the winners of the 2024–25 UEFA Champions League in the 2025 UEFA Super Cup.
A total of 76 teams from 41 of the 55 UEFA member associations are set to participate in the 2024–25 UEFA Europa League. Among them, 32 associations had teams directly qualifying for the Europa League, while for the other 23 associations that did not have any teams directly qualifying, 9 of them had teams playing after being transferred from the Champions League. The association ranking based on the UEFA association coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:[3]
For the 2024–25 UEFA Europa 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.[4]
Apart from the allocation based on the association coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Europa League, as noted below:
The information here reflects the ongoing suspension of Russia in European football, and so the following changes to the default access were made:
As the Europa League title holders (Atalanta) qualified for the Champions League 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 third qualifying round was divided into Champions Path (CH) and Main Path (MP).
Two teams not playing in a national top division took part in the competition: Corvinul Hunedoara (2nd tier) and Wisła Kraków (2nd tier).
Notes
The schedule of the competition is as follows.[7] Matches are scheduled for Thursdays, apart from the final, which takes place on a Wednesday, though exceptionally can take place on Tuesdays or Wednesdays due to scheduling conflicts. Compared to past seasons, one exclusive week will be introduced where both Wednesday and Thursdays are matchdays, held on September 25 and 26.[8][9][10]
The draw for the first qualifying round was held on 18 June 2024. The first legs were played on 11 July, and the second legs were played on 18 July 2024.
The winners of the ties advanced to the second qualifying round. The losers were transferred to the Conference League Main Path second qualifying round.
The draw for the second qualifying round was held on 19 June 2024. The first legs were played on 25 July, and the second legs were played on 1 August 2024.
The winners of the ties advanced to the Main Path third qualifying round. The losers were transferred to the Conference 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 8 August, and the second legs were played on 13, 14 and 15 August 2024.
The winners of the ties advanced to the play-off round. The Champions Path losers were transferred to the Conference League Champions Path play-off round, while the Main Path losers were transferred to the Conference League Main Path play-off round.
The draw for the play-off round was held on 5 August 2024. The first legs were played on 22 August, and the second legs were played on 29 August 2024.
The winners of the ties advanced to the league phase. The losers were transferred to the Conference League league phase.
The league phase draw for the 2024–25 UEFA Europa League took place at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco on 30 August 2024, 13:00 CEST.[11][12] The 36 teams were divided into four pots of nine teams each based on their UEFA club coefficient.
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 will face 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.[13][14]
RFS will make their debut appearance since the introduction of the group stage.
A total of 23 national associations will be represented in the league phase.
The top eight ranked teams will receive 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 are eliminated from all competitions, with no access to the 2024–25 UEFA Conference League.
The top eight sides in the league will qualify automatically for the knockout phase and will receive a bye to the round of 16, while the teams finishing in 9th to 24th place will compete in a two-legged first round play-off to secure their path to the round of 16, with teams ranked 9th–16th being seeded and hosting the second leg at home while teams ranked 17th to 24th hosting the first leg. The winners will join the top eight, and host the second leg at home, in the round of 16. Meanwhile, teams that finish 25th or lower will be eliminated from all competitions, with no access to the 2024–25 UEFA Conference League.[1]
