Champions League group stage changes: What will the tournament look like next season?

It’s the end of an era for the Champions League, as the tournament plays out the last season of its current format before major changes are introduced in 2024.

The most significant reforms to the Champions League in a generation were announced by Uefa in 2021, days before the failed European Super League plot was launched back in 2021, and they received unanimous backing from the European Club Association and Uefa Club Competitions Committee.

It confirmed plans to change the format of European football’s top club competition from 2024, giving the tournament its first new look in 20 years. The proposals were not met with the same level of backlash that greeted the Super League plans but were still criticised by leading fans’ groups, including the Football Supporters’ Association [FSA].

“We are united in opposition to proposals to reform the Champions League that are a back door attempt at a return to the discredited idea of a European Super League,” read a statement from the FSA’s Premier League Network.

But what are the changes, and how will the Champions League look from 2024 now the plans have been voted through? Here’s everything you need to know.

What will the new Champions League look like?

Since 2003, the Champions League has been a 32-team competition with a single group-stage phase followed by a knockout phase. The 32 teams, seeded according to league position and Uefa coefficient, have been split into eight groups of four, with the top two teams progressing to the last-16 after six rounds of matches in a round-robin format with both home and away matches. That has then been followed by three two-legged rounds, the last-16, quarter-finals and semi-finals, with matches played home and away, before the final at a