The 2022–23 UEFA Champions League was the 68th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organized by UEFA.
Manchester City defeated Inter Milan at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey. The stadium was originally appointed to host the 2020 UEFA Champions League Final, but both this, and the 2021 final which had been eventually re-allocated to the Atatürk, were moved due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As winners Manchester City automatically qualified for the 2023–24 UEFA Champions League group stage, and earned the right to play against the winner of the 2022–23 UEFA Europa League, Sevilla, in the 2023 UEFA Super Cup and the 2023 FIFA Club World Cup, winning both.
Real Madrid were the defending champions, but were eliminated by Manchester City in the semifinals.
A total of 78 teams from 53 of the 55 UEFA member associations participate in the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League (the exceptions being Russia, who are banned from participating due to 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Liechtenstein,Note LIE[›] which does not organise a domestic league). The association ranking based on the UEFA association coefficients is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:[1]
For the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2021 UEFA association coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2016–17 to 2020–21.[2]
Apart from the allocation based on the association coefficients, associations may have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below:
The following is the access list for this season.[3]
Due to the suspension of Russia for the 2022–23 European season, and since the Champions League title holders (Real Madrid) have qualified via their domestic league, the following changes to the access list have been made:[4]
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
The second qualifying round, third qualifying round and play-off round are divided into Champions Path (CH) and League Path (LP).
CC: 2022 UEFA club coefficients.[5]
Notes
The schedule of the competition is as follows. All matches are played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays apart from the preliminary round final. Scheduled kick-off times starting from the play-off round are 18:45 and 21:00 CEST/CET.[7]
As the 2022 FIFA World Cup takes place in Qatar between 21 November and 18 December 2022, the group stage will commence in the first week of September 2022 and conclude in the first week of November 2022 to make way for the World Cup.
All draws start at 12:00 CEST/CET and are held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.[8]
The preliminary round will consist of two semi-finals on 21 June 2022 and the final on 24 June 2022. The draw for the preliminary round will be held on 7 June 2022. A total of four teams will play in the preliminary round. Seeding of teams will be based on their 2022 UEFA club coefficients,[5] with two seeded teams and two unseeded teams in the semi-finals. The first team drawn in each tie in the semi-finals, and also the final (between the two winners of the semi-finals, whose identity was not known at the time of draw), would be the "home" team for administrative purposes.
The draw for the first round will be held on 14 June 2022.[7] A total of 30 teams will play in the first qualifying round: 29 teams which enter in this round, and 1 winner of the preliminary round. Seeding of teams will be based on their 2022 UEFA club coefficients.[5] For the winner of the preliminary round, whose identity will not be known at the time of draw, the club coefficient of the highest-ranked remaining team will be used. The first team drawn in each tie will be the home team of the first leg.
The first legs will be played on 5 and 6 July, and the second legs were played on 12 and 13 July 2022.
The winners of the ties advanced to the Champions Path second qualifying round. The losers will be transferred to the Europa Conference League Champions Path second qualifying round.
The draw for the second qualifying round will be held on 15 June 2022. A total of 24 teams will play in the second qualifying round. They will be divided into two paths:
Seeding of teams will be based on their 2022 UEFA club coefficients.[5] For the winners of the first qualifying round, whose identity will not be known at the time of draw, the club coefficient of the highest-ranked remaining team in each tie will be used. The first team drawn in each tie will be the home team of the first leg.
Champions Path
Seeded
Unseeded
League Path
The draw for the third qualifying round will be held on 18 July 2022. A total of 20 teams will play in the third qualifying round. They will be divided into two paths:
Seeding of teams will be based on their 2022 UEFA club coefficients.[5] For the winners of the second qualifying round, whose identity will not be known at the time of draw, the club coefficient of the highest-ranked remaining team in each tie will be used. The first team drawn in each tie will be the home team of the first leg.
Seeding to be confirmed
The draw for the play-off round will be held on 1 August 2022. A total of 12 teams will play in the play-off round. They will be divided into two paths:
Seeding of teams will be based on their 2022 UEFA club coefficients.[5] For the winners of the third qualifying round, whose identity will not be known at the time of draw, the club coefficient of the highest-ranked remaining team in each tie will be used. The first team drawn in each tie will be the home team of the first leg.
The draw for the group stage will be held on 25 August 2022. The 32 teams will be drawn into eight groups of four. For the draw, the teams are seeded into four pots, each of eight teams, based on the following principles:
Teams from the same association could not be drawn into the same group.
Eintracht Frankfurt will make their debut appearance in the group stage after winning Europa League. This season is also the first in which five German clubs will play in the group stage.
Pot 1
Pot 2
Pot 3
Pot 3 or 4
Pot 4
The final was played on 10 June 2023 at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul. A draw was held on 17 March 2023, after the quarter-final and semi-final draws, to determine the "home" team for administrative purposes.[10]
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