More big changes are coming to the UEFA Champions League from 2024/25 and Celtic will be affected.
As you’ll know by now, European football’s premier club competition is undergoing a major revamp from next season.
The new Champions League format will see the traditional group stage ditched in favour of a new single league phase which features four additional teams.
We know that each team will play eight matches, instead of the current six, all against different sides.
More details have come out from UEFA this afternoon with ESPN journalist Dale Johnson sharing them on Twitter.
The big takeaway is in the shape of the knockout rounds. 24 of the 36 competing teams will make it through to the knockouts, with positions 9-24 playing off against each other to join 1-8 in the last 16. Confused? Yeah me too.
Johnston’s big revelation today is that individual round draws will be a thing of the past. Instead, a pre-determined route will be created at the start of the knockout stage, with the best teams seeded.
The ESPN reporter describes it as a “tennis style” system and that seems a pretty good way to put it.
Johnston also says that the group phase of the competition will run until late January. With two more games to fit in that seems a logical choice, and it will at least extend Celtic‘s European commitments a little.
There is also some stuff about teams from the same country being able to face each other a lot earlier than is currently the case.
We could face another Scottish team in the first knockout round of either the Champions League or Europa League, but still not in the group stage.
So things are going to change pretty radically a year from now. We probably won’t realise how substantial the changes are until we’re living through it.
A reminder that Celtic can qualify for the first edition of the new format by winning the Premiership this season.
In other news, Conor Hazard has finally ended his nine-year affiliation with Celtic
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