Europa League and Conference League: how the formats work

The Europa League and the Conference League are UEFA's second and third club competitions, sitting below the Champions League. Both are continental tournaments played largely on Thursday evenings, both are open to clubs that qualify through their domestic league position or by winning a national cup, and both are settled by a single final at a neutral stadium. The clearest way to picture the structure is as a pyramid: the Champions League at the top, the Europa League directly beneath it, and the Conference League as the broad base that gives smaller associations a realistic route into Europe.

Since the 2024/25 revamp, both competitions open with a league phase built on the so-called Swiss model. Thirty-six clubs share one single table, but nobody plays everybody. Europa League entrants are drawn against eight different opponents taken from four seeding pots, four matches at home and four away. Conference League entrants play six matches, one against a club from each of six pots. Three points for a win, one for a draw, and final position in that single table decides everything that follows.

The cut-off points are where the tension lives. The top eight in each table go straight through to the round of 16. Clubs ranked ninth to twenty-fourth drop into a two-legged knockout play-off round in February to fill the remaining places. Everyone from twenty-fifth downwards is eliminated on the spot, with no repechage and no transfer to another competition. From the round of 16 onwards the format is traditional: two legs, home and away, with extra time and penalties if the aggregate score is level.

Entry arrives from several directions. Most places come from domestic league finishing positions and national cup wins, while clubs knocked out in Champions League qualifying are redirected into the Europa League or the Conference League. The sporting reward is concrete. The Europa League winner is handed a place in the following season's Champions League league phase, and the Conference League winner moves up into the Europa League. Add prize money and coefficient points that shape how many European berths a country receives, and neither trophy is decoration.

The Europa League carries deep history. It grew out of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, became the UEFA Cup in the early 1970s, absorbed the legacy of the Cup Winners' Cup when that tournament was discontinued at the end of the 1990s, and took its present name in 2009. Sevilla have made it their own, winning it more often than any other club. The Conference League is far younger, launched in 2021 so that clubs from mid-sized and smaller associations could realistically reach a European final; Roma lifted the first edition.

Two misunderstandings persist. The first treats these tournaments as consolation prizes, when in practice they are the quickest promotion route into the Champions League for clubs outside the traditional elite. The second concerns the old parachute: teams finishing third in Champions League groups once dropped into the Europa League, but the revamped calendar ended that safety net, so elimination now means elimination. It is also worth remembering that the away-goals rule was abolished in 2021, so a score draw away from home no longer carries any hidden bonus.