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List of clubs for direct rebalancing:
2024/25 ]
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:
to fill the open spot in the league stage caused by effectively not using the titleholder
spot, including the knock-on effects to lower qualifying rounds of the same competition.
Either because the titleholder qualified already for the league stage of that competition
by the domestic league, or the Conference League titleholder qualified for the Champions
League (and chooses to take that route).
- Indirect rebalancing:
all other reasons for rebalancing, including the knock-on effects to lower competitions
because of direct rebalancing in the Champions League or Europa League.
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).