The UEFA Europa League has been overhauled for next season, with the number of teams increasing from 32 to 36 and a major change in the format of the competition. UEFA announced on Monday (4) that the UEFA will adopt the UEFA Swiss System of play next season, which replaces the group stage and ensures that each team will play at least eight matches and a maximum of 17 matches to reach the final.
Under the new league format, 36 teams will compete on the same table, teams will be divided into four tiers and each team will compete against two teams from each tier (1 home + 1 visit), which means that each team will play eight matches. After the eight rounds of matches, teams from the first to eighth ranked leagues advance directly to the top 16. Teams ranked ninth through twenty-fourth can compete in a play-in round (seeded ninth through sixteenth) for the other eight Top 16 spots, and teams ranked twenty-fifth or lower can go straight out.
The current system will be followed at the start of the knockout rounds. If a team wants to play a play-off and end up in the final, the federation will have 17 Europa League matches, only 2 fewer than the previous Central European Super League program. As for the joint use of the Europa League and the European Association, it will also switch to the 'Swiss system of leagues', but there will still only be 6 matches in the league phase.
