How Premier League teams qualified for 2025/26 Champions League and Europa competitions

Sarah Winterburn 25 May 2025 6:26 PM

Champions League trophy next to the Europa League and Europa Conference League trophies.

The 24/25 Premier League season is in the books. We’d known for quite some time that Liverpool would be champions and who was going back to the Championship, but now we can tidy up all the other details around European qualification.

How many teams qualified for the Champions League from the Premier League?

It has now been confirmed that five teams will qualify for the Champions League. Under the Champions League’s new Swiss model system (you can see how that works here), there will be 36 teams instead of 32 teams competing and two of those extra four teams come from the countries with the strongest records in that season’s European competitions.

In five of the last seven seasons that would have meant an extra place allocated from England but the travails of Newcastle and Manchester United – who both exited from the Champions League at the group stage last season – meant that the extra places for 24/25 went to Italy and Germany.

But the numbers were re-set at the start of the season and England comfortably secured one of the extra places thanks to all seven of their teams making the knockout stages and three going all the way to finals.

How did Premier League teams qualify for the Europa League?

England gets two Europa League places. One belongs to the highest-placed finisher not in the Champions League and the other goes to the winner of the FA Cup. So this season that meant sixth place in the Premier League and Crystal Palace after their Wembley success against Man City.

It is also how Manchester United claimed a place in the 24/25 Europa League competition.

How do Premier League teams qualify for the Conference League?

As well as all the fizzy pop they can drink, the Carabao Cup winners also receive a place in the play-off stages for the Europa Conference League. Liverpool did not need that place last season as they had already qualified for the Champions League so the place reverted to Chelsea, who finished sixth in the Premier League.

Newcastle United also have no need for it this season, so the Conference League place would revert to the highest Premier League finisher not qualified for another European competition. This year, that means seventh.

Do Europa League winners Spurs qualify for the Champions League?

The important thing to remember here is that when a team wins either of the two main European competitions that come with the reward of a Champions League spot and finish outside the qualifying spots through their domestic league, it counts as an extra place.

So 17th-placed Tottenham will now play in the Champions League as Europa League winners, making six Premier League teams in the Champions League next season.