Lincoln Red Imps will play against Hamrun Spartans FC from Malta in the Champions League first qualifying round. The first leg is to be played in Malta after this Tuesday’s draw.
The Maltese league champions play at the Victor Tedesco Stadium which has a 2,000 spectator capacity. The clubs was on 9 June 2021 was excluded from participating in the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League for being involved in a match fixing scandal back in 2013. Their return the next season saw them reach the play-off stage of a UEFA club competition
The first round kicks off what will be a new era for the Champions League. The 2024/25 edition of the UEFA Champions League will follow a new format. Winner of the Malta Premier League ten times, with the last two in the last two consecutive years they are one of the top teams in Malta. They have yet to get past the first round in the Champiins League.
With UEFA changing its format, to ensure the new 2024/25 format will deliver the best for clubs, players and fans, UEFA based its design on extensive consultations with key stakeholders in the European football community. The final format, access list and calendar for European club competitions was approved on 10 May 2022, further to UEFA’s decision of 19 April 2021 to introduce a new competition system.
“The pivotal change in the reforms announced by the UEFA Executive Committee is the departure from the current format’s group stage system. The present Champions League group stage includes 32 participants divided into eight groups of four. From the 2024/25 season, 36 clubs will participate in the Champions League league phase (former group stage), giving four more sides the opportunity to compete against the best clubs in Europe. Those 36 clubs will participate in a single league competition in which all 36 competing clubs are ranked together.
Under the new format, teams will play eight matches in the new league phase (former group stage). They will no longer play three opponents twice – home and away – but will instead face fixtures against eight different teams, playing half of those matches at home and half of them away. To determine the eight different opponents, the teams will initially be ranked in four seeding pots. Each team will then be drawn to play two opponents from each of these pots, playing one match against a team from each pot at home, and one away.
This gives the opportunity for clubs to test themselves against a wider range of opponents and raises the prospect for fans of seeing the top teams go head to head more often and earlier in the competition. It will also result in more competitive matches for every club across the board.
How will the four extra Champions League group stage spots be allocated?
Qualification for the Champions League will continue to be open and depend on a club’s final position in the previous season’s domestic league competition combined with each association’s position in the association club coefficient ranking. The basis of the access list will remain the same as for the current season, and the additional four slots available in 2024/25 will be allocated as follows:
* Slot one: This place will go to the club ranked third in the championship of the association in fifth position in the access list, which is determined by the UEFA association club coefficient ranking.
* Slot two: This place will be awarded to a domestic champion by extending from four to five the number of clubs qualifying via the Champions path of the competition’s qualifying process, which will consist of four qualifying rounds.
* Slots three and four: These places will go to the associations with the best collective performance by their clubs in the previous season (i.e. the association club coefficient of the previous season, which is based on the total number of club coefficient points obtained by each club from an association divided by the number of participating clubs from that association). Those two associations will each earn one automatic place in the league phase (‘European Performance Spot’) for the club ranked next-best in their domestic league behind those clubs that have already qualified directly for the league phase.
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* The results of each match will decide the overall ranking in the new league, with three points for a win and one for a draw still applying.
* The top eight sides in the league will qualify automatically for the round of 16, while the teams finishing in 9th to 24th place will compete in a two-legged knock-out phase play-off to secure their path to the last 16 of the competition. Teams that finish 25th or lower will be eliminated, with no access to the UEFA Europa League.
* The new format, with all the teams ranked together in a single league, will mean that there is more to play for all the way through to the final night of the league phase.
* In the knockout phase, the teams that finish between 9th and 16th will be seeded in the knockout phase play-off draw, meaning they will face a team placed 17th to 24th – with, in principle, the return leg at home. The eight clubs which prevail in the knockout phase play-offs will then progress to the round of 16, where they will each face one of the top-eight finishers, who will be seeded in the round of 16.
* To strengthen the synergy between the league and knockout phases, and to provide more sporting incentive during the league phase, the pairings of the knockout phase will also be partly determined by the league phase rankings, with a draw which likewise determines and lays out the route for teams to reach the final.
* From the round of 16 onwards, the competition will continue to follow its existing format of knockout rounds leading to the final staged at a neutral venue selected by UEFA.
* All games before the final will continue to be played in midweek, recognising the importance of the domestic calendar of games across Europe, while the final will continue to be played on a Saturday.
Similar format changes will also be applied to the UEFA Europa League (eight matches and therefore eight different opponents in the league phase) and UEFA Europa Conference League, which will be called the UEFA Conference League as of 2024/25 (six matches and therefore six different opponents in the league phase), with both competitions also featuring 36 teams in the league phase.”
