The 2024/25 UEFA Champions League season will have an additional four clubs participate in the new format as against the initial 32 teams that have been the norm for a couple of seasons.
There have been questions by stakeholders of the competition concerning how the extra four clubs will be selected. However, UEFA had initially announced that an additional place to be allocated to the two countries whose clubs perform best across all UEFA competitions ( Champions League, Europa League, Conference League).
Italy, Germany and England are the three top teams that are at the best advantage to have these extra slots allocated to them. The Serie A and the Bundesliga currently lead the race to get these spots but things could change in the Premier League's favour when the next round of fixtures in Europe are played.
Eight English teams qualified for European competitions with six of them having reached the round of 16 across UEFA competitions. Manchester City and Arsenal are in the Champions League, Liverpool, West Ham and Brighton in the Europa League and Aston Villa in the Europa Conference League.
The Bundesliga also have six teams but there is no certainty that they will progress to the next round. Bayern lost a 1-0 defeat at Lazio and RB Leipzig also lost 1-0 to Real Madrid Freiburg and Eintracht Frankfurt all drew them with one leg to go in the Europa League and Europa Conference League knockouts, respectively.
