Matches played 60 Venue Murrayfield Stadium Tries scored 336 Attendance 524,125 | Lowest Attendance 2,500
(Zebre v Wasps) Dates 14 Oct 2016 – 13 May 2017 Teams 20 | |
 | ||
Countries England
France
Ireland
Italy
Scotland
Wales Tournament format(s) Round-robin and Knockout Highest Attendance 38,584
(Leinster v Northampton Saints) Top point scorer(s) Owen Farrell (Saracens
(79 points) Location Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh, United Kingdom Similar 2014–15 European Rugby C, 2013–14 Heineken Cup, 2011–12 Heineken Cup, 2012–13 Heineken Cup, 1996–97 Heineken Cup | ||
The 2016–17 European Rugby Champions Cup is the third European Rugby Champions Cup championship, the annual rugby union club competition for teams from the top six nations in European rugby. The competition replaced the Heineken Cup, which was Europe's top-tier competition for rugby clubs for the first nineteen years of professional European rugby union.
Contents
English side Saracens are the reigning champions, having beaten Racing 92 of France in the 2016 final in Lyon.
The opening round of the tournament took place on the weekend of 14/15/16 October 2016. The final will take place on the 13 May 2017, at BT Murrayfield in Edinburgh.
Teams
Twenty clubs from the three major European domestic and regional leagues will compete in the Champions Cup. Nineteen of these will qualify directly as a result of their league performance.
The distribution of teams is:
Due to the 2015 Rugby World Cup, it was decided that the play-off system that had previously decided the final team would be suspended, and that this year the winner of the 2015–16 European Rugby Challenge Cup would automatically qualify for the tournament. In the event this team had already qualified, the team's domestic league would be allocated an extra qualifying place.
The following teams qualified for the 2016–17 tournament.
This is the first time all four Irish provinces have qualified for Europe's top club competition on their own merits, as Connacht's two previous appearances in the former Heineken Cup had been as a result of Leinster winning that cup the previous season.
Team details
Below is the list of coaches, captain and stadiums with their method of qualification for each team.
Note: Placing shown in brackets, denotes standing at the end of the regular season for their respective leagues, with their end of season positioning shown through CH for Champions, RU for Runner-up, SF for losing Semi-finalist and QF for losing Quarter-finalist.
Seeding
The 20 competing teams are seeded and split into four tiers, each containing 5 teams.
For the purpose of creating the tiers, clubs are ranked based on their domestic league performances and on their qualification for the knockout phases of their championships, so a losing quarter-finalist in the Top 14 would be seeded below a losing semi-finalist, even if they finished above them in the regular season.
Based on these seedings, teams are placed into one of the four tiers, with the top seed clubs being put in Tier 1. The nature of the tier system means that a draw is needed to allocate two of the three second seed clubs to Tier 1. Exeter Chiefs and Leinster were drawn into Tier 1, meaning the remaining side - Toulon went into Tier 2. As a result of this draw, Montpellier also entered Tier 2, as the fourth seed from the league of the second seed placed in Tier 2. The other two fourth rankes sides fell into Tier 3.
The tiers are shown below. Brackets show each team's seeding in their league (for example, 1 for a team in the Top 14 column indicates the team was seeded 1st from the Top 14).
The following restrictions will apply to the draw:
Pool stage
The draw took place on 29th June 2016, in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
Teams will play each other twice, both at home and away, in the group stage, that will begin on weekend of 14/15/16 October 2016, and continue through to 20/21/22 January 2017, before the pool winners and three best runners-up progressed to the quarter finals.
Teams will be awarded competition points, based on match result. Teams receive 4 points for a win, 2 points for a draw, 1 attacking bonus point for scoring four or more tries in a match and 1 defensive bonus point for losing a match by seven points or fewer.
In the event of a tie between two or more teams, the following tie-breakers will be used, as directed by EPCR:
- Where teams have played each other
- The club with the greater number of competition points from only matches involving tied teams.
- If equal, the club with the best aggregate points difference from those matches.
- If equal, the club that scored the most tries in those matches.
- Where teams remain tied and/or have not played each other in the competition (i.e. are from different pools)
- The club with the best aggregate points difference from the pool stage.
- If equal, the club that scored the most tries in the pool stage.
- If equal, the club with the fewest players suspended in the pool stage.
- If equal, the drawing of lots will determine a club's ranking.
Format
The eight qualifiers are ranked according to their performance in the pool stage and compete in the quarter-finals which will be held on the weekend of 31 March, 1/2 April 2017. The four top teams will host the quarter-finals against the four lower teams in a 1v8, 2v7, 3v6 and 4v5 format.
The semi-finals will played on the weekend of 22/23 April 2017. In lieu of the draw that used to determine the semi-final pairing, EPCR announced that a fixed semi-final bracket would be set in advance, and that the home team would be designated based on "performances by clubs during the pool stages as well as the achievement of a winning a quarter-final match away from home". Semi-final matches must be played at a neutral ground in the designated home team's country.
Home country advantage will be awarded as follows:
The winners of the semi-finals will contest the final, at BT Murrayfield, on 13 May 2017.