2021–22 European Rugby Champions Cup
The 2021–22 European Rugby Champions Cup was the eighth season of the European Rugby Champions Cup, the annual club rugby union competition run by European Professional Club Rugby for teams from the top six nations in European rugby. It was the 27th season of pan-European professional club rugby competition.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 24-team, two pool tournament format adopted for the previous season remained.
This is the final year, under the current sponsorship deal, with Dutch beer brand Heineken, after a four-year deal was agreed starting from the 2018/19 season.
The tournament commenced in December 2021. On 28 May 2022, Stade Rochelais won the final at Stade Vélodrome in Marseille, France, defeating Leinster 24 points to 21.
Teams
Twenty-four clubs from the three major European domestic and regional leagues are competing in the Champions Cup.The distribution of the teams are:
- England: eight clubs
- * The top eight clubs from Premiership Rugby
- France: eight clubs
- * The top seven clubs from the Top 14
- * Montpellier automatically qualify as Challenge Cup champions despite not finishing in the top 8.
- Ireland, Italy, Scotland, Wales: eight clubs
- * The top four sides in each conference from the previous season's Pro14.
Team details
Below is the list of coaches, captain and stadiums with their method of qualification for each team.Note: Placing shown in brackets, denotes standing at the end of the regular season for their respective leagues, with their end of season positioning shown through CH for Champions, RU for Runner-up, SF for losing Semi-finalist, and QF for losing Quarter-finalist.
| Team | Coach / Director of Rugby | Captain | Stadium | Capacity | Method of qualification | |||||||
 Seeding and drawThe twenty four teams are seeded based on their finishing position in end of season playoffs and league positions. This follows the format from the previous season with the number 1 and number 2 ranked clubs from each league in Tier 1, the number 3 and number 4 ranked clubs in Tier 2, the number 5 and 6 ranked clubs in Tier 3, and the number 7 and number 8 ranked clubs in Tier 4.
|
