2023–24 UEFA Europa Conference League

The 2023–24 UEFA Europa Conference League was the third season of the UEFA Europa Conference League, Europe's tertiary club football tournament organised by UEFA.
The final was played at the Agia Sophia Stadium in Athens, Greece. It was won by Olympiacos, who defeated Fiorentina 1–0 after extra time, and qualified for the 2024–25 UEFA Europa League league stage as a result.
This edition was the final season under this name, as it was renamed to the UEFA Conference League from the 2024–25 season onwards. According to UEFA, the new denomination of the competition would enable further development as a stand-alone competition in their research amongst fans and commercial partners. This was also the final season with the format of 32 teams participating in the group stage, after UEFA announced that a brand-new Swiss-system format would be introduced for the following edition. Due to the change, no clubs could be transferred from the Europa League group stage to the Conference League, so starting with this edition the winners would no longer be able to defend their title.
As the title holders, West Ham United qualified for the 2023–24 UEFA Europa League. They were unable to defend their title after advancing to the Europa League knockout phase.

Association team allocation

A total of 178 teams from 54 of the 55 UEFA member associations participated in the 2023–24 UEFA Europa Conference League. The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:

Associations 1–5 each had one team qualify.
Associations 6–16 and 51–55 each had two teams qualify.
Associations 17–50 each had three teams qualify.
Liechtenstein had only one team that qualified as they organized only a domestic cup and no domestic league.
Moreover, 18 teams eliminated from the 2023–24 UEFA Champions League and 25 teams eliminated from the 2023–24 UEFA Europa League were transferred to the Europa Conference League.

Association ranking

For the 2023–24 UEFA Europa Conference League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2022 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2017–18 to 2021–22.
Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Europa Conference League, as noted below:

– Additional teams transferred from the UEFA Champions League
– Additional teams transferred from the UEFA Europa League

Distribution

The following is the access list for this season.
Due to the suspension of Russia for the 2023–24 European season, the following changes to the access list were made:

The cup winners of association 16 entered the Europa League third qualifying round instead of the second qualifying round.
The cup winners of associations 17 to 19 entered the third qualifying round instead of the second qualifying round.
The cup winners of associations 30 to 39 entered the second qualifying round instead of the first qualifying round.

Combining with the Champions League title holder qualifying for the Champions League group stage via their domestic league, the following changes to the access list were made:

Two of the Champions League first qualifying round losers received byes and entered the third qualifying round instead of the second 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 Europa Conference League play-offs winners
UCL: Transferred from the Champions League
* Q1: Losers from the first qualifying round
* PR: Losers from the preliminary round
UEL: Transferred from the Europa League
* GS: Third-placed teams from the group stage
* PO: Losers from the play-off round
* CH/MP Q3: Losers from the third qualifying round

The second qualifying round, third qualifying round and play-off round were divided into Champions Path and Main Path.
One team not playing in a national top division took part in the competition: Vaduz.
'''Notes'''

Schedule

The schedule of the competition was as follows. Matches were scheduled for Thursdays apart from the final, which took place on a Wednesday, though exceptionally could take place on Tuesdays or Wednesdays due to scheduling conflicts.

Group stage

The draw for the group stage was held on 1 September 2023, 14:30 CEST, in Monaco. The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots, each of eight teams, based on their club coefficients. Teams from the same association could not be drawn into the same group.
All teams besides AZ, Ballkani, Bodø/Glimt, Fiorentina, Gent, HJK, Maccabi Tel Aviv, PAOK, Slovan Bratislava and Zorya Luhansk made their debut appearances in the group stage. Breiðablik, Čukarički, KÍ, Olimpija Ljubljana and Zrinjski Mostar all made their debut appearances in a UEFA competition group stage. Breiðablik, KÍ and Zrinjski Mostar were the first teams from Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Bosnia and Herzegovina, respectively, to play in a UEFA competition group stage. Breiðablik also became the first ever team to qualify for the group stages of a UEFA club competition after starting in a preliminary round.
A total of 28 national associations were represented in the group stage.