History could be made during the 2023-24 season as for the first time five Premier League teams could qualify for the Champions League through league position.
A change in format for the 2024-25 campaign sees 36 teams competing in the competition in a ‘Swiss league’ style allowing for an additional place to allocated to the two countries whose club’s perform best across all UEFA competitions.
For this to happen, the English clubs in this year’s campaign would have to provide one of the top two performances across the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League.
A Premier League statement said ‘We will likely only know when that fifth spot will come into play for the UCL towards the end of the season, when the geographical spread of the participating clubs in the latter stages UEFA competitions is known.’
Traditionally there has only been four clubs who have qualified for the Champions League through their league position.
Should Manchester City repeat their Champions League heroics a fifth Premier League team would qualify through league position
On one occasion though five Premier League teams did qualify for Europe’s elite competition when Liverpool lifted the trophy during the 2005 season, but finished outside of the top four.
Last season saw Manchester City win the Champions League against Inter Milan, while West Ham beat Fiorentina to claim the Europa Conference League. A European performance that would be enough to see a fifth team qualify had the new rules been implemented for the upcoming campaign.
The Premier League have confirmed that in five of the past six seasons and seven of the past 11 that the performance of English clubs in Europe would have merited the extra spot.
The change in rules could in fact see a maximum of seven clubs qualify, although that would require both the Champions League and Europa League winners to be from the Premier League and both teams finish outside the top five.
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