UEFA Women's Champions League

UEFA Women's Champions League

Organising body	UEFA
Founded	2001
Region	Europe
Number of teams	16 (group stage) 72 (total)
Current champions	Barcelona (2nd title)
Most successful club(s)	Lyon (8 titles)
Television broadcasters	DAZN beIN Sports (MENA only)
Website	uefa.com/womenschampionsleague
2023–24 UEFA Women's Champions League

The UEFA Women's Champions League, previously called the UEFA Women's Cup (2001–2009), is a European women's association football competition. It involves the top club teams from countries affiliated with the European governing body UEFA.

The competition was first played in 2001–02 under the name UEFA Women's Cup, and renamed the Champions League for the 2009–10 edition. The most significant changes in 2009 were the inclusion of runners-up from the top eight ranked nations, a one-off final as opposed to the two-legged finals in previous years, and – until 2018 – playing the final in the same city as the men's UEFA Champions League final. In the 2021–22 season, the competition proper included a group stage for the first time in the Women's Champions League era.

Lyon is the most successful club in the competition's history, winning the title eight times, including five consecutive titles from 2016 to 2020. Barcelona are the current champions, having beaten VfL Wolfsburg in the 2023 final.

The idea of creating two new women's European Cups is regularly raised to offer more matches.

Format

UEFA Women's Cup (2001–2009)

A preliminary round was played to reduce teams to 32. Starting in the second season, this grouped teams into mini-tournaments of four teams, whose winners advanced to the group stage.

The group stage was eight groups of four, whose winners advanced to the quarter-finals. The knock-out rounds were played as two-legged matches.

For the 2004–05 season the group stage was played in four groups of eight, with the top two teams advancing to the quarter-finals.

Champions League (2009–2021)

On 11 December 2008, UEFA announced that the competition would be reformatted and renamed to the UEFA Women's Champions League. As in the men's game, the new tournament aimed to include runners-up of the top women's football leagues in Europe.

The competition was opened to the champions of all 55 UEFA associations that had a qualifying women's league. Due to the varying participation, the number of teams playing the qualifying round changed from year to year. Numbers were based on three principles:

• Qualifying rounds are contested by groups of 4 teams.
• Group winners, plus the smallest possible number of runners-up, qualify for the Round of 32.

Minor adjustments

When the new format was initially announced, the eight top countries according to the UEFA league coefficient were awarded two places in the league, with runners-up participating in the qualifying rounds.

For the 2011–12 tournament, the runners-up from the top eight nations instead qualified directly to the R32. For the five years under this format, seven nations remained in the top eight: Germany, Sweden, England, France, Denmark, Russia, and Italy. A different nation provided the eighth runner-up in each of the five years: Iceland, Norway, Austria, Czech Republic, and Spain in that order.

The tournament was expanded for the 2016–17 season, with the runners-up from nations 9–12 in UEFA league coefficient also qualifying. For the first three years under this format, the four nations in these slots were Czech Republic, Austria, Scotland, and Norway. For the 2019–20 season, Switzerland replaced Norway, and for the final season under this format, Norway, Kazakhstan, and The Netherlands replaced Russia, Scotland, and Austria in the top 12.

Champions League (2021–2025)

On 4 December 2019, a new format was announced for the 2021–22 season. The top six associations entered three teams, associations ranked 7–16 entered two, and the remaining associations entered one. The competition is restructured to appear more similar to the men's CL format, with a double-round-robin group stage, and two paths (a champions path and a non-champions path) for teams that do not automatically qualify for the group stage. UEFA also centralized the media rights from the group stage onward.

• Qualification takes place in two rounds: a First round of four-team mini-tournaments, and a Second round of two-legged matches. Each of these rounds is split into two simultaneous paths based on how teams qualified.
  • The Champions path consists of the champions from the top 50 associations. 7 teams advance.
  • The League path consists of the runners-up from the top 16 associations. 5 teams advance.
• The Group stage includes four teams qualifying directly: the defending UWCL champions and the champions from the top 3 associations. It is played in four groups of four, each advancing two teams to two-legged quarterfinals.

Champions League (2025–)

On 4 December 2023, a new format was announced for the 2025–26 season. The top seven associations enter three teams, associations ranked 8–17 enter two, and the remaining associations enter one. The competition is restructured to appear more similar to the men's CL format, with a Swiss-system 'league phase' consisting of 6 games against 6 different opponents (3 home and 3 away), and two paths (a champions path and a non-champions path) for teams that do not automatically qualify for the league stage.

• Qualification takes place in two separate paths of up to three rounds.
  • The Champions path consists of the domestic champions from associations ranked seventh or below as well as the previous season's second competition winner with 4 teams advancing to the league stage. A preliminary round and first round are played as series of four-team mini-tournaments while the second round is played as two-legged ties.
  • The League path consists of domestic runners-up from associations ranked fourth to seventeenth and domestic third-placed teams from associations ranked first to seventh. A first round is played as a series of four-team mini-tournaments, while the second round is played as two-legged ties.
  • Losers from the second round ties and runners-up and third-placed teams in the first round mini-tournaments will transfer to the as-yet unnamed second competition, while fourth-placed teams in the first round mini-tournaments and all losers from the preliminary round mini-tournaments will be eliminated.
• The League stage consists of nine teams qualifying directly: The defending champions, domestic champions from the associations ranked sixth or higher as well as the domestic runners-up from the top two associations.
  • The top four teams from the league stage will advance to the quarter-finals while teams ranked fifth to twelfth will qualify to a knockout play-off round. The remaining six teams are eliminated.

Prize money

Prize-money was awarded for a first time in 2010, when both finalists received money. In 2011 the payments were extended to losing semi- and quarter-finalists. The 2021–22 Women's Champions League introduced a 16-team group stage to the competition, for which each participant will receive €400,000 (about five times as much as Round of 16 participants received in previous editions). The winner of the 2021–22 tournament could earn up to €1.4 million depending on its results in the group stage (wins in the group stage are worth more than draws).

As of 2022, the prize-money structure is

• €250,000 winning team
• €200,000 losing finalist
• €50,000 losing semi-finalists
• €25,000 losing quarter-finalists

Teams also receive €20,000 for playing each round or the qualifying. Earlier years have been complaints about the sum, which doesn't cover costs for some longer trips which include flights.

Sponsorship

Until the 2015–18 cycle, UEFA Women's Champions League used to have the same sponsors as the UEFA Champions League. Since 2018, women's football competitions such as the Champions League have separate sponsors. The tournament has centralised rights: in the group stage, only some assets and the official ball are centralised, while in knock-out rounds, UEFA started allowing only a few club sponsors, alongside the ones who are official.

As of 2022, official sponsors include Visa, Adidas, Hublot, PepsiCo, Just Eat Takeaway, Euronics, Grifols, and Heineken.

Records and statistics

Winners

By nation

During the first Champions League era with no group stage (2009-2021), no team from a nation outside the top two of France and Germany won the title, except for Barcelona in 2021. The only teams from nations outside the top two nations to have finished runner-up in that time were Tyresö in 2014, Barcelona in 2019 and Chelsea in 2021. Also during that era, only two teams from a nation outside the top four (then France, Germany, Sweden, and England) ever made the semi-finals: Brøndby in 2015 and Barcelona in four of the last five years under that format.

Top scorers by tournament

The top-scorer award is given to the player who scores the most goals in the competition. Up until the introduction of the Champions League Group Stage it included the qualifying rounds. Since 2021–22 only goals from the group stage onwards count towards the award. Iceland's Margrét Lára Vidarsdóttir has won the award three times. Ada Hegerberg holds the record for most goals in a season.

All-time top scorers

As of 21 May 2022 Bold players still active.

International broadcasters

Global

DAZN have the global rights of the competition from 2021–22 until 2024–25, 61 matches in both 2021–22 and 2022–23 seasons were live streamed for free on the DAZN UEFA Women's Champions League YouTube channel.

MENA

All matches from group stage until final will be aired live on beIN Sports until 2023–24 season.

United States

ATA Football agreed a new partnership with DAZN which saw the subscribers get access of 31 live matches from the tournament throughout the 2021–22 season. Those games were also available to rewatch on the platform, as well as live on DAZN and its YouTube channel.

Gallery

• 
  2005 champions
• 
  2008 final
• 
  2008 final score
• 
  2008 champions
• 
  2012 final

See also

• FIFA Women's Club World Cup
  • AFC Women's Club Championship
  • CAF Women's Champions League
  • Copa Libertadores Femenina
  • OFC Women's Champions League