PREMIER LEAGUE clubs are set to earn a pretty penny from Uefa before they even kick a ball in Europe this season.
Seven English clubs will be competing across the three Uefa club competitions, which have undergone a radical format change.
This new set-up puts them in a Swiss-style league system, instead of the previously adopted eight groups of four with the top two progressing.
Now, each club will play eight matches in the opening phase – against seeded opposition, in a system designed to ensure that teams overall play opponents of similar difficulty.
The top eight teams in the “final” table will automatically go through to the last 16, where they will be joined by the eight play-off winners of ties between the sides placed ninth to 24th in the table.
Despite there being just eight matches in the opening phase, European matches will be spread over ten midweek slots.
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But how much will each team earn from the new Uefa package?
Kicking us off are Premier League champions Manchester City.
Pep Guardiola is hoping to land a second European title with the club this season.
Winning every match in the Champions League alone could see them earn somewhere in the region of £140million-£145m.
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But before a ball has even been kicked they are in line to receive £53m from the new package.
Liverpool will earn at least £51m from the deal, Arsenal about £46m and Aston Villa give or take around £33m.
By comparison, the Europa League offers a far less bountiful starting prize pool.
Tottenham, who qualified for the competition through a fifth-place league finish, will earn £12m.
This figure is the same as what Manchester United, who qualified through winning the FA Cup, will also receive.
Meanwhile, Chelsea – who were knocked out of the Europa League and into the Europa Conference League because of United’s FA Cup triumph – are in line to earn just £5m.
The new automated Champions League league phase draw is due to take place at 5pm on Thursday evening at the Grimaldi Forum in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
The Europa League and Conference League draws are then due to take place the following day at 12pm and 1.30pm respectively.
New Champions League format
Each club will play eight matches in the opening phase – against seeded opposition, in a system designed to ensure that teams play opponents of similar difficulty.
The top eight teams in the “final” table will automatically go through to the last 16, where they will be joined by the eight play-off winners of ties between the sides placed ninth to 24th in the table.
Despite there being just eight matches in the opening phase, European matches will be spread over 10 midweek slots.
The new Champions League format also sees the implication of two additional qualifying spots.
They will be awarded to the nations that are top of the “country coefficient” chart each season.
The pots for the Champions League are as follows:
Pot 1:
- Real Madrid
- Bayern Munich
- Paris Saint-Germain
- Inter Milan
- Borussia Dortmund
- RB Leipzig
- Barcelona
- Manchester City
- Liverpool
Pot 2:
- Bayer Leverkusen
- Atletico Madrid
- Atalanta
- Juventus
- Benfica
- Club Brugge
- Shakhtar Donetsk
- AC Milan
- Arsenal
Pot 3:
- Feyenoord
- Sporting CP
- PSV Eindhoven
- Celtic
- Winner of Young Boys v Galatasaray play-off
- Winner of Dinamo Zagreb v Qarabag play-off
- Winner of Lille v Slavia Prague play-off
- TBD (see below)
- TBD (see below)
Pot 4
- Monaco
- Aston Villa
- Bologna
- Girona
- VfB Stuttgart
- Sturm Graz
- Brest
- Winner of Malma v Sparta Prague play-off
- TBD (see below)
Who will fill the TBD spots?
The spots that you can not accurately predict come down to three play-off games – here are the matches in question:
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- Midtjylland v Slovan Bratislava
- Bodo/Glimt v Red Star Belgrade
- Dynamo Kyiv v Red Bull Salzburg
The qualifying side with the lowest coefficient will go into Pot 4, with the others going into Pot 3.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
