UEFA rule change AFFECTS Liverpool as Champions League seeding is announced

Liverpool will return to the UEFA Champions League for the 2024–2025 season, following a one-year absence.

With two games remaining and without having played a match against Tottenham Hotspur last weekend, the Reds secured a top-three finish in the Premier League this season. After a Europa League campaign that was ended by eventual winners Atalanta in the quarterfinals, they will once again sit at Europe’s top table.

Of course, a completely new format also corresponds with Liverpool’s return to the top club competition in European football. UEFA has previously declared that, starting in 2024–2025, all 36 participating clubs would play in a single league. This implies that the group stage structure, which saw 32 teams compete and be divided into four pots of eight, will no longer exist.

“This will give four more sides the opportunity to compete against the best clubs in Europe,” the announcement reads.

Liverpool is regarded as one of the finest teams in Europe, even though they haven’t won the cup since 2019. Their recent successes in the Champions League and Europa League will be helpful because of a significant rule change.

The Reds won’t return to the Champions League as English champions, but there is a chance they will be seeded higher than the eventual Premier League winners, assuming Arsenal and Manchester City don’t have a collapse in form over the remaining two gameweeks of the season.

Modifications to Champions League rules affect Liverpool

Liverpool would not have been eligible for a berth in Pot One next season under the previous regulations, which were reserved for the holders of the Champions League and Europa League and the domestic champions from the six countries with the highest UEFA coefficients.

But under the new arrangement, a spot in Pot One is no longer assured for domestic champions and Europa League winners. Actually, the eight teams that rank highest in the UEFA club coefficients and the current Champions League champions will make up the top seeds going forward.

Liverpool, along with Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, and Inter Milan, is assured a spot in Pot One with 114 points in the coefficients table. However, since two of the eight games the Merseyside giants have are against teams in the same pot, this does not indicate they will get a kind draw.

This could mean playing Manchester City and either Arsenal, Aston Villa, or Tottenham Hotspur, depending on who finishes in fourth place. This will be the first time teams from the same country have faced each other prior to the Champions League quarterfinal since Liverpool was oddly denied “country protection” in 2005/2006.