2024–25 UEFA Conference League
The 2024–25 UEFA Conference League was the fourth season of the UEFA Conference League, Europe's tertiary club football tournament organised by UEFA.
From this season, the competition was renamed from the UEFA Europa Conference League to the UEFA Conference League. This was also the first edition of the tournament played under a new format involving a 36-team league phase. This increased the total number of matches played in the competition proper from 141 to 153. The new format also did not allow teams to transfer from the Europa League league or knockout phase to the Conference League knockout phase, and thus Conference League winners could no longer defend their title as the winner of the Conference League automatically qualified for the Europa League league phase.
The final was played at the Wrocław Stadium in Wrocław, Poland, between Chelsea and Real Betis, with Chelsea winning the match 4–1. The victory made Chelsea the first club to win all four major European trophies, including all three of the current European competitions. Chelsea’s triumph over Betis also marked the first time a Spanish team had lost a final since Valencia lost to Bayern Munich in the 2001 Champions League final and marked the first English team to beat a Spanish team in a European final since Liverpool's UEFA Cup triumph, also in 2001.
Association team allocation
A total of 164 teams from 54 of the 55 UEFA member associations participated in the 2024–25 UEFA Conference League. The association ranking based on the UEFA association coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:- Associations 1–12 each have one team.
- Associations 13–33 and 51–55 each have two teams.
- Associations 34–50 each have three teams.
- 14 teams eliminated from the 2024–25 UEFA Champions League and 41 teams eliminated from the 2024–25 UEFA Europa League were transferred to the Conference League.
Association ranking
For the 2024–25 UEFA Conference League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2023 UEFA association coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2018–19 to 2022–23.Apart from the allocation based on the association coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Conference League, as noted below:
- – Additional teams transferred from the UEFA Champions League
- – Additional/vacated teams transferred from/to the UEFA Europa League
Distribution
The following is the access list for this season.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 will enter the second qualifying round instead of the first qualifying round.
- As a result of corresponding changes to the Champions League access list, there was one fewer loser from the Champions League first qualifying round transferred to the Conference League second qualifying round so one transferred team received a bye to the third qualifying round.
- As a result of corresponding changes to the Champions League access list, there was one fewer loser from the Champions League first qualifying round transferred to the Conference League second qualifying round, so one transferred team received a bye to the third qualifying round.
- The cup winners of associations 45 and 46 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
- UCL: Transferred from the Champions League
- *Q1: Losers from the first qualifying round
- UEL: Transferred from the Europa League
- *PO: Losers from the play-off round
- *CH/MP Q3: Losers from the third qualifying round
- *Q2: Losers from the second qualifying round
- *Q1: Losers from the first qualifying round
Three teams not playing in a national top division took part in the competition: Corvinul Hunedoara, Vaduz and Wisła Kraków.
'''Notes'''
Schedule
The schedule of the competition is as follows. Matches are scheduled for Thursdays, with an exclusive day of 19 December, apart from the final, which takes place on a Wednesday, though exceptionally can take place on Tuesdays or Wednesdays due to scheduling conflicts.League phase
The league phase draw for the 2024–25 UEFA Conference League took place at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco on 30 August 2024, 14:30 CEST. The 36 teams were divided into six pots of six teams each based on their UEFA club coefficient.
The 36 teams were manually drawn and then automated software digitally drew their six different opponents at random, determining which of their matches were at home and which ones away. Each team faced one opponent from each of the six pots. Teams could not face opponents from their own association, and could only be drawn against a maximum of two sides from the same association.
Borac Banja Luka, Celje, Cercle Brugge, 1. FC Heidenheim, Jagiellonia Białystok, Larne, Noah, Pafos, Petrocub Hîncești, The New Saints, and Víkingur Reykjavík all made their debut appearances in a major UEFA competition group or league phase. In addition, Noah were the first club in Conference League history to successfully navigate all four rounds of qualification, while The New Saints and Larne were the first teams from the Wales and Northern Ireland associations, respectively, to play in a major UEFA competition group or league stage.
A total of 29 national associations were represented in the league phase.
Table
The top eight ranked teams received a bye to the round of 16. The teams ranked from 9th to 24th contested the knockout phase play-offs, with the teams ranked from 9th to 16th seeded for the draw. Teams ranked from 25th to 36th were eliminated from the competition.Knockout phase
In the knockout phase, teams will play against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final. The bracket structure for the knockout phase is partially fixed in advance using seeding, with teams' positions in the bracket determined by the final standings in the league phase.Statistics
Statistics exclude qualifying rounds and play-off round.Team of the Season
The UEFA technical study group selected the following players as the team of the tournament.| Player | Team | |
 fbaicon|ENGTooltip|DF|DefenderPlayer of the SeasonYoung Player of the Season |