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UEFA rebalancing methods

UEFA European Cup Football
by Bert Kassies

The access list has reserved spots for all 3 titleholders. If a titleholder qualifies also by domestic league or cup for any of the 3 European competitions then there is an empty spot in the access list. That empty spot is resolved by rebalancing the access list (and in general not going to a club from the same country as the titleholder). Rebalancing the access list means that some clubs are moved to other rounds such that the qualifying format delivers the correct amount of clubs in later rounds.

The titleholder is only an extra club for a country when that club did not qualify by domestic league or cup for any of the 3 European competitions. In that case no rebalancing is needed.

Types of rebalancing

From 2024 on there are two kinds of rebalancing. Direct rebalancing fills open spots in the format by the club(s) with the highest 5-yr club ranking from lower levels in the same competition. An open spot in the league stage is filled by the club with highest ranking of all clubs in the qualifying phase, but for an open spot in other rounds only clubs from the previous round are eligible. For rebalancing of the CL titleholder spot only champions are eligble, but all clubs of the qualifying rounds do compete for rebalancing of the EL titleholder spot.

Indirect rebalancing fills open spots in the format by clubs from the next best association. This is the rebalancing that was used until 2024.

A club is only eligible for direct rebalancing if it does not leapfrog over clubs from the same association. For the current access list that means that the runners-up of countries at rank 11-15 are not eligible for promotion to the CL league stage as long as the champions are not in the CL league stage. And that the 3rd ranked clubs of countries at rank 8-12 are not eligible for promotion to the EL league stage as long as the cup winners (or the club at the cup winner spot if the cup winner qualified for CL) are not in the EL league stage.

So, the Champions League mainly uses direct rebalancing (except for non-titleholder related changes like bans, etc). In the Conference League it's always indirect rebalancing (including the selection of clubs promoting to the Europa League), because there is no titleholder spot. In the Europa League it can either be direct rebalancing (Conference League titleholder related), or indirect rebalancing due to knock-on effects from Champions League rebalancing. Direct rebalancing in the Europa League can include cross competition rebalancing between Europa League and Conference League (cup winners in CO-Q2 are moved to EL-Q1).

Clubs of EL-Q2 will not be promoted to EL-Q3, but clubs of EL-Q1 will be moved to EL-Q2 instead. In general, the rounds without starting clubs (CL-POnc, CL-Q3, and CO-Q3) are skipped with rebalancing, and are not considered as previous round within this context.

EPS

The 2 EPS (European Performance Spots) places are different as these will always result in an extra team for that country. An extra Champions League place for the next best club of the domestic league that did not qualify for Champions League. And if that club already qualified for the Europa League, then the next best club of the domestic league that did not qualify for the Europa League gets an Europa League spot. And again, if that club already qualified for the Conference League, then the next best club of the domestic league that did not qualify for the Conference League gets the Conference League spot. EPS is always applied after all empty spots in the access list are rebalanced with the methods explained above.

More details may be found in the official regulations: CL regulations (pdf or online), EL regulations (pdf or online), and CO regulations (pdf or online).

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