The UEFA Executive Committee approved the full details of the access list, club coefficient and distribution for the UEFA club competitions cycle of 2018–21, Uefa said in a statement on its website.
The UEFA Executive Committee met today at the House of European Football in Nyon, Switzerland, and awarded the organisation of the 2018 UEFA Europa League final to the city of Lyon, France.
Regarding the UEFA club competitions cycle of 2018–21, further to the decisions made in August, the full details of the access list, club coefficient and distribution were approved.
For the upcoming cycle, it was also decided to have two separate kick-off times in the UEFA Champions League, at 19.00CET (two matches) and 21.00CET (six matches), allowing fans opportunities to watch more matches.
The new access list continues to provide the 55 national associations with a chance to qualify for the group stage of both club competitions. It will also ensure that all domestic champions eliminated in the qualifying rounds of the UEFA Champions League get a second chance in the European competitions by entering a dedicated champions' path in UEFA Europa League qualification.
The top four nations in the rankings, at this point Spain, Germany, England and Italy, will each have four teams in the round of 32, without the clubs having to go through the preliminary stages. The Platini revolution to include clubs from the lower ranked nations, but which reduced the level of the competition, will be thrown out as from 2018.
The new club coefficient will no longer include a 20% contribution of the respective national association coefficient in order to avoid further unfair advantage for clubs of top-ranked associations and penalisation of clubs with good individual performances but a weak association coefficient. The club coefficient used for seeding purposes will be calculated using results of the past five years to reflect the current strength of teams and will not contain bonus points for previous titles.
Meanwhile, the club coefficient used for financial distribution purposes will cover the last ten years and will include bonus points for previous titles to reflect the longer-term contribution of clubs to the competition brand and success. Bonus points for trophies won will be allocated as follows:
Following a proposal from the UEFA President, an additional contribution of €50m from the UEFA Champions League to the UEFA Europa League will be made, and a further €10m will be earmarked also from the UEFA Champions League as additional solidarity distribution for the qualifying rounds.
The committee agreed to further strengthen UEFA's comprehensive anti-doping programme by extending the time of storage of samples to ten years, allowing retesting once new testing procedures become available.