Moreover, prize money will be “increased significantly” for both the Champions League and Europa League.
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It was also understood that UEFA and the European Club Association (ECA) met and discussed a variety of options to ward off the threat of a Super League.
“We have awaited the draw with great anticipation”, he told the club’s official website.
At present the winners enter at the playoff stage by right, but are elevated to the group stage if the holders also qualify via league position.
Some have suggested the Blues have once again been given a “Group of Death” scenario – but he says everyone at the club is pleased, even though they recognise the difficulty of the task they face.
The Premier League is set to have four teams qualifying automatically for the Champions League group stage from the 2018-19 season. The top three associations now get three teams guaranteed in the group stages, and the fourth association, two.
Uefa uses a complicated coefficient to determine the rankings of the national leagues.
The format of the competition will remain the same with eight groups of four followed by the knockout stages featuring 16 sides.
The champions and runners-up of the fifth and sixth-ranked leagues, at present France and Russian Federation, will continue to have two places, while the champions of the seventh to 10th ranked leagues, now Portugal, Ukraine, Belgium and Turkey, will also qualify automatically.
In Italy only the top two qualify automatically with third contesting a play-off, which their clubs have failed to negotiate for the last three seasons.
Points will be yielded for past European titles yet weighted towards later achievement in the Champions league and Europa League.
The big clubs claim that too many places in the group stage to clubs from smaller countries who are not competitive.
A number of other changes have been implemented.
Rostov, who has not qualified for the Champions League group stage before, will take on Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena on September 13. Currently, they can potentially end up in the play-off round.
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Spain have four teams in this season’s group stages.
