The 2025–26 UEFA Conference League will be the fifth season of the UEFA Conference League, Europe's tertiary club football tournament organised by UEFA.
This will be the second UEFA Conference League played under a new format involving a 36-team league phase.[1] The new format also does not allow teams to transfer from the Europa League league or knockout phase to the Conference League knockout phase, and thus Conference League winners can no longer defend their title as the winner of the Conference League automatically qualifies for the Europa League league phase.[2]
The final will be played at the Red Bull Arena in Leipzig, Germany.[3] The winners of the tournament will automatically qualify for the 2026–27 UEFA Europa League league phase, unless they qualify for the 2026–27 UEFA Champions League through their league performance. In such case, the access list will be rebalanced.
Association team allocation
A total of 167 teams from 54 of the 55 UEFA member associations are participating in the 2025–26 UEFA Conference League. The association ranking based on the UEFA association coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:[4]
- Associations 1–12 each have one team.
- Associations 13–33 and 51–55 (except Russia)[Note RUS] each have two teams.
- Associations 34–50 each have three teams (except Liechtenstein, which has one).[Note LIE]
- 15 teams eliminated from the 2025–26 UEFA Champions League and 41 teams eliminated from the 2025–26 UEFA Europa League will be transferred to the Conference League.
Association ranking
For the 2025–26 UEFA Conference League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2024 UEFA association coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2019–20 to 2023–24.[5]
Apart from the allocation based on the association coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Conference League, as noted below:
- (CL) – Additional teams transferred from the UEFA Champions League
- (EL) – Additional/vacated teams transferred from/to the UEFA Europa League
Distribution
The following is the access list for this season.
| Teams entering in this round | Teams advancing from previous round | Teams transferred from Champions League | Teams transferred from Europa League | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First qualifying round (52 teams) |
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| Second qualifying round (102 teams) |
Champions path (14 teams) |
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| League path (88 teams) |
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| Third qualifying round (60 teams) |
Champions path (8 teams) |
|
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| League path (52 teams) |
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| Play-off round (48 teams) |
Champions path (10 teams) |
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| League path (38 teams) |
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| League phase (36 teams) |
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| Knockout phase play-offs (16 teams) |
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| Round of 16 (16 teams) |
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The information here reflects the ongoing suspension of Russia in European football, and so the following changes to the default access list were made:
- The cup winners of associations 39 to 44 (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Liechtenstein, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Luxembourg and Lithuania) will enter the second qualifying round instead of the first qualifying round.
Teams
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
- CW: Domestic cup winners
- 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, etc.: League position of the previous season
- LC: League cup winners
- RW: Regular season winners
- PW: End-of-season Conference League play-offs winners
- CL: Transferred from the Champions League
- Q1: Losers from the first qualifying round
- EL: Transferred from the Europa League
- PO: Losers from the play-off round
- CH/MP Q3: Losers from the third qualifying round (Champions/Main Path)
- MP Q2: Losers from the second qualifying round (Main Path)
- MP Q1: Losers from the first qualifying round (Main Path)
The second qualifying round, third qualifying round and play-off round were divided into Champions Path (CH) and Main Path (MP).
Notes
- ^ Liechtenstein (LIE): The seven teams affiliated with the Liechtenstein Football Association (LFV) all played in the Swiss football league system. The only competition organised by the LFV was the Liechtenstein Football Cup – the winners of which qualified for the UEFA Conference League for the 2025–26 season.
- ^ Russia (RUS): On 28 February 2022, Russian football clubs and national teams were suspended from FIFA and UEFA competitions due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[6] The tables reflect Russia's ongoing suspension from UEFA competitions.[7]
See also
- 2025–26 UEFA Champions League
- 2025–26 UEFA Europa League
- 2026 UEFA Super Cup
- 2025–26 UEFA Women's Champions League
- 2025–26 UEFA Youth League
References
- ^ "UEFA approves final format and access list for its club competitions as of the 2024/25 season". UEFA.com. 10 May 2022.
- ^ "UEFA Europa Conference League to be renamed UEFA Conference League next season". UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. 28 June 2023. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
- ^ "Budapest to host UEFA Champions League Final 2026". Union of European Football Associations. 22 May 2024. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
- ^ "Regulations of the UEFA Conference League, 2024/25 Season". Nyon: UEFA. 2024. Retrieved 4 April 2024.
- ^ "Association coefficients 2023/24". UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. Retrieved 1 June 2023.
- ^ "Ukraine crisis: Fifa and Uefa suspend all Russian clubs and national teams". BBC Sport. British Broadcasting Corporation. 28 February 2022. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
- ^ "UEFA decisions for upcoming competitions relating to the ongoing suspension of Russian national teams and clubs" (Press release). Nyon: UEFA. 2 May 2022. Retrieved 2 May 2022.