UEFA Youth League 2015-2016 new format

[Centurions]

http://www.uefa.com/uefayouthleague/news/newsid=2149865.html

UEFA Youth League retained and expanded
Published: Thursday 18 September 2014, 19.32CET
The UEFA Youth League is to become a permanent competition with a new format where the UEFA Champions League teams are joined by 32 domestic champions.

The UEFA Youth League will be bigger and better from the 2015/2016 season after the UEFA Executive Committee approved a new format for the competition at their meeting in Nyon.

From 2015/16, the UEFA Youth League will become a permanent UEFA competition and will be extended to 64 teams which will allow the inclusion of youth domestic champions. This addition will increase the quality of the competition and will guarantee a wider country representation. At the same time, the hugely successful innovation of the inaugural edition of the UEFA Youth League, where the competition mirrors the UEFA Champions League format and fixture calendar, has been retained.

So this UEFA Champions League path remains with the same format and system as currently in place, with the youth teams of the 32 participating clubs in the UEFA Champions League group stage playing in the same eight groups of four teams.

From the 2015/16 season, a parallel path for the domestic youth champions will be added. The domestic champions of the top-ranked 32 associations in the UEFA club coefficient ranking will be given access to this path. Associations without a youth domestic champion as well as domestic champions already included in the UEFA Champions League path, would be replaced by the next association in the UEFA ranking.

The two-path competition format provides the best of both worlds for the UEFA Youth League. Clubs and players would still have the benefit of playing matches on the same schedule as with UEFA Champions League which would allow players to travel and spend time with the senior squad, enable clubs to experience international youth fixtures and give the competition added exposure. Meanwhile, the Domestic Champions path will allow a greater representation of countries and clubs.

UEFA Club Competitions Committee chairman Michel van Praag stated: "The UEFA Youth League so far has produced high-quality, competitive football. Now this new format will see the inclusion of the youth domestic champions, in order to have an even higher sporting quality and a wider representation in the UEFA Youth League. We have set a high standard for the competition and we now expect to see it get even better."

• New format
UEFA Champions League path
• 32 teams in eight groups of four (same as UEFA Champions League)
• Group winners progress to round of 16
• Runners-up play in the knockout play-offs

Domestic Champions path
• 32 domestic champions enter first qualifying round (two legs)
• 16 winners reach second qualifying round (two legs)
• 8 winners progress to knockout play-offs

Knockout phase
Play-off
• 8 winners from the Domestic Champions path play at home against the 8 runners-up from the UEFA Champions League path (single leg).

Round of 16
• The 8 group winners from the UEFA Champions League path play against the 8 winners of the play-offs (single leg). The home team is determined by the draw.

Quarter-finals
• Single-leg ties with the home team determined by draw.

Semi-finals and final
• Played as one-off matches in a single venue.

• Age limits
In addition, the UEFA Executive Committee decided on new age limits for the competition. The Under-19 category is retained, but clubs will be able to include a maximum of three U20 players in their overall list of 40 players for the competition, in order to alleviate the burden on players having school duties.

 

[BigOscar]

Jesus, that sounds awful. Have they just levered a way of sticking an extra 32 teams who didn't qualify for the CL into it? It looks like a right mess, almost like two completely different competitions that just sort of ram into each other half way through?

 

[Centurions]

Jesus, that sounds awful. Have they just levered a way of sticking an extra 32 teams who didn't qualify for the CL into it? It looks like a right mess, almost like two completely different competitions that just sort of ram into each other half way through?

I had to re-read it a couple of times to get my head around it. I suspect that the U21 Premier League International Cup was the impetus behind it in an attempt to overload the clubs with fixtures and forcing them to drop out.

Or am I being too cynical?

 

[Neville Kneville]

Jesus, that sounds awful. Have they just levered a way of sticking an extra 32 teams who didn't qualify for the CL into it? It looks like a right mess, almost like two completely different competitions that just sort of ram into each other half way through?

I had to re-read it a couple of times to get my head around it. I suspect that the U21 Premier League International Cup was the impetus behind it in an attempt to overload the clubs with fixtures and forcing them to drop out.

Or am I being too cynical?

You are probably dead right.

I like the idea of a few overage players being allowed in.

That would allow Brandon Barker, Kean Bryan etc, if not on loan, to continue playing some intensive games alongside the rest of that team, whilst (hopefully) also playing some games for the senior team.

 

[BigOscar]

Jesus, that sounds awful. Have they just levered a way of sticking an extra 32 teams who didn't qualify for the CL into it? It looks like a right mess, almost like two completely different competitions that just sort of ram into each other half way through?

I had to re-read it a couple of times to get my head around it. I suspect that the U21 Premier League International Cup was the impetus behind it in an attempt to overload the clubs with fixtures and forcing them to drop out.

Or am I being too cynical?

You are probably dead right.

I like the idea of a few overage players being allowed in.

That would allow Brandon Barker, Kean Bryan etc, if not on loan, to continue playing some intensive games alongside the rest of that team, whilst (hopefully) also playing some games for the senior team.

I like the overage idea, but only U20 makes little sense to me, U21 or even U23 would have made more sense. Only one year older seems almost pointless

 

[Nixon_The_Bike_Thief]

 

[Centurions]

Since they have to have been born on or after 1st Jan 1997 we'll lose, out of the recent U18 match against Chelsea :- Tattum, Celina, Iheanacho, Barker, Albinson & Bryan.

Those still eligible would be :- Angelino (by just 4 days) , Boadu, Ambrose, Maffeo, Adarabioyo, Nemane, Garcia, Wood, Buckley, Dilrosun, Humphreys-Grant & Haug plus of course any moving up.

I'm hopeful the PLIC gets a 2nd year outing and doesn't just disappear.

The regs are here for anyone looking for them :- http://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles.../Regulations/02/24/06/34/2240634_DOWNLOAD.pdf

 

[Georgemk]

they way i understand it is that:
if we win the group we play the same amount of games as this season - 6 group games, round of 16, quarter finals etc
if we are runner up we play 1 extra game in order to get into round of 16 - 6 group games, playoff(1 leg), round of 16, quarter finals etc

looks like a attempt to stop the PLIC by adding all these extra teams in which are probably not 'big clubs' as they havent qualified for champions league so i would assume they have a smaller youth squad or only a few good players and they might see entering the PLIC as too many games