Exclusive: Uefa ready to consider expanding Champions League to 36 teams from 2024-25

Uefa are ready to consider radical plans to increase the size of the Champions League to 36 clubs from 2024-25.

The proposal would see each side play 10 group matches and it is understood to be gaining support among clubs from across the European game, including from some of its biggest leagues

Expansion plans had been floated earlier this year to an initially lukewarm response but they have gained traction, as they are seen as a way to balance the demands of Europe’s major clubs - including in England - for more marquee fixtures with calls from mid-sized leagues in Europe for extra Champions League berths.

Discussions about the format of European club competitions beyond 2024 are set to resume in the coming weeks. It is hoped that a final decision can be ratified sometime next year.

There are understood to be two models for a 36-team Champions League, each involving 10 group matches per team. Under the first model, sides would be divided into six groups of six and play each other home and away.

Under the second option, the 36 clubs would each play 10 fixtures against 10 different opponents, with fixtures decided by a seeding system designed to ensure equitable fixture lists for each side, similar to the 'Swiss-system' structure used in US sports leagues.

It is believed that there is growing support for the Swiss system, with the perception that the current model used in the Champions League group stages - in which teams play their three group opponents twice - has become stale. The proposed Swiss system would allow more clashes between leading clubs in the group stages and thus prove more attractive to broadcasters. This is a crucial consideration, with clubs across the continent facing a financial hit due to Covid-19 and fears that the looming pan-continental recession will lead to a sharp reduction in the money paid for broadcast rights.

Either model is likely to win support from the leading Premier League clubs, who are keen to free up more space in the calendar for European fixtures. Project Big Picture, the explosive document for reforming English football revealed by Telegraph Sport last week, proposed to reduce the size of the Premier League to 18 clubs and scrap the League Cup and FA Cup replays to create extra European matchdays.

While an increase in the number of teams in the Champions League group stages to 36 would be seen as a further power grab by Europe’s biggest clubs, it could also appease growing discontent among mid-sized European leagues.

Last season was the first time in history that all 16 sides to reach the knockout stages of the Champions League were from the five major European leagues - England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France - and there is growing concern among heads of mid-sized European leagues about the lack of a pathway for their leading clubs.

Since 2018, the big five leagues have been guaranteed 18 berths in the group stages - including four from the Premier League - compared with 13 from 2015-18. There are calls for these changes to be undone.

“More teams from non-top five leagues need to have access to the Champions League and to the Europa League,” said Claus Thomsem, the chief executive of Denmark’s Superliga.

With Premier League clubs - like those from other major leagues - entrenched in wanting to retain four automatic Champions League berths, expanding the group stages could be a compromise.

Smaller European leagues are also pushing for the differences in payments for teams reaching the Champions League and Europa League to be reduced to grow the depth of the European game. There are also calls for an increase in solidarity payments to clubs not in European competitions. Solidarity payments to clubs who do not participate in European competitions are currently four per cent of the overall gross revenues of the competitions.

“The European Leagues have always called for the increase of Uefa solidarity payments to non-participating clubs as a key measure to protect and enhance competitive balance in domestic leagues,” said Jacco Swart, managing director of European Leagues, who represent leagues throughout the continent. “Now, facing and fighting Covid, the football stakeholders have an even greater responsibility to support financially medium and small clubs across Europe.”

Claudius Schaefer, the chief executive of the Swiss Football League, said that, even if an official European Super League did not come to pass, the future of the Champions League might come very close to the vision of a Super League, with fewer opportunities for sides from mid-sized leagues. “If it goes in this direction, it would be a terrible, terrible, terrible landmark for European football,” he said.

Mid-sized leagues are adamant that the Champions League group stages must not encroach upon weekends, while entry to the tournament must be decided by domestic performances the previous season, rather than a system of historical performances which would effectively guarantee qualification to the European club elite.

In another potential change, UEFA have said that they will consider adopting the ‘final eight’ format - the single-country, one-leg format adopted to conclude the 2019/20 Champions League and Europa League - from 2024-25.