Newcastle, Union and co promise to refresh Champions League next season

W hen the confetti cannons have been silenced, the celebratory pyrotechnics extinguished and the presentation podium dismantled after Saturday night’s Champions League final, tournament organisers at Uefa HQ will have little or no time to catch the collective breath.

On Tuesday, after a run-through of the byzantine rules of qualification, the glass bowls and mini screw-top plastic footballs so synonymous with Champions League draws will be dusted off and pressed into service in Nyon. The qualifying rounds of next season’s competition are scheduled to kick off later this month and, less than 72 hours after the trophy lift in Istanbul, the four teams in the preliminary round will be paired.

Setting out on the first tentative steps towards qualification for the group stages in the 69th season of Europe’s most elite football tournament, representatives from Iceland, Andorra, Montenegro and San Marino will duke it out for the one remaining place left in the first qualifying round.

In the preposterously unlikely event that one of Breidablik, Atlètic Club d’Escaldes, Buducnost Podgorica or Tre Penne eventually make it to the final 32, the successful minnows will already have played 10 matches in the competition by the time the group stages kick off in September.

Next season’s Champions League, whose final is due to be played at Wembley next June, will be the last one in which the current format of 32 teams competing in eight groups of four is employed. From 2024-25 the tournament will be expanded to a more bloated Swiss-style system: all clubs will play an extra two group fixtures and room will have to be made in an already hectic football schedule for an additional 100 games on top of the current total of 125.

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