After Arsenal’s 3-0 victory over Real Madrid at the Emirates Stadium last night, five UEFA Champions League qualification places have been awarded to Premier League teams for next season.
Due to the new Champions League format introduced for this season’s competition, more qualification spots in domestic leagues across Europe became available by expanding the total number of competing teams from 32 to 36.
Determining which countries earned the most amount of Champions League qualification places is UEFA’s Coefficient Table, which awards points to countries based on performances in UEFA competitions, including the Europa League and Conference League.
Points are awarded to teams and subsequently domestic league countries by winning, drawing and progressing to the next round of each of the three competitions. These scores are then averaged out in a table.
With Arsenal and Aston Villa representing England in the Champions League quarter-finals, as well as Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa League, and Chelsea in the Conference League, all at the same knockout stage, one English team winning guaranteed a fifth English club to compete in the Champions League next season.
After Arsenal’s impressive victory over Real Madrid last night, the team that finishes 5th in the Premier League this season will secure qualification for the 2025/26 Champions League season.
However, there is a possibility that up to seven English teams will compete in UEFA’s most prestigious competition next season, depending on whether Aston Villa wins the Champions League this season but fails to finish 5th or above in the Premier League, or if Manchester United or Tottenham win the Europa League this season.
To say that the lucrative revenue generated by competing in the new format of the Champions League is vital to the financial success of Premier League clubs is an understatement at best.
Due to the minimum number of games in the Champions League moving forward, rising from six to eight as part of the competition’s new league phase format, football clubs have more opportunities to enhance their revenue by simply competing in more fixtures.
UEFA also awards lucrative prize money for qualifying teams into the league phase, which increases if clubs qualify for the round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finishing as winners or runners-up.
With the format now expanded, UEFA’s total prize money awarded to teams in total this season has increased from £1.74bn last year to over £2bn this season. If Arsenal were to become Champions League winners this season, they could stand to make over £80m in prize money alone.
Adding in the money generated from UEFA’s broadcast rights deals with the likes of TNT Sports and Amazon Prime Video, there is no wonder why English clubs are now placing arguably more emphasis on Champions League qualification than ever before.
With Liverpool and Arsenal all but likely to guarantee their qualification to the Champions League next season, there are currently five teams competing for the remaining three qualification places in the Premier League this season.
Just six points separate Nottingham Forest in third and Aston Villa in seventh, with Chelsea, Newcastle and Manchester City all vying for a place in next season’s competition.
As the league’s Profit & Sustainability Rules (PSR) have become more stringent and a burden on clubs’ finances, the revenue generated from competing in the Champions League is increasingly vital for these aforementioned clubs.
Newcastle arguably exemplified the financial impact the most when it competed in the 2023/24 Champions League. Despite finishing last in their group that season, the competition helped increase its revenue by 22% from £250.3m in 2022/23, to £320.3m for the 2023/24 financial year.
Prize money and media rights revenue from the Champions League affords Premier League clubs with financial flexibility, enabling them to reinvest in their squads and club infrastructure to maintain their standing in England and Europe.
While PSR penalises clubs if they exceed the three-year £105m loss threshold, no English club that has competed in the Champions League has fallen foul of this ruling as of yet, a good indication that Europe’s elite club competition can relieve the stress of complying with tightening financial regulations.
