 | ||
Dates Qualifying round:
22–27 August 2017
Knockout phase:
4 October 2017 – 24 May 2018 Teams Knockout phase: 32
Total: ~59 (from ~47 (of 55) associations) | ||
The 2017–18 UEFA Women's Champions League will be the 17th edition of the European women's club football championship organized by UEFA, and the 9th edition since being rebranded as the UEFA Women's Champions League.
Contents
The final will be held at the Valeriy Lobanovskyi Dynamo Stadium in Kiev, Ukraine on 24 May 2018, two days before the final of the men's tournament played at the NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium.
Association team allocation
A maximum of 68 teams from 55 UEFA member associations may participate in the 2017–18 UEFA Women's Champions League. The association ranking based on the UEFA league coefficient for women is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:
Association ranking
For the 2017–18 UEFA Women's Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2016 UEFA league coefficients for women, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2011–12 to 2015–16.
Distribution
The format of the competition remains unchanged from previous years, starting from the qualifying round, which is played as mini-tournaments with four teams in each group, followed by the knockout phase starting from the round of 32, which is played as home-and-away two-legged ties except for the one-match final.
Unlike the men's Champions League, not every association enters a team, and so the exact number of teams in each round (qualifying round and round of 32) can not be determined until the full entry list is known. In general, the title holders, the champions of the top 12 associations, plus the runners-up of highest-ranked associations (exact number depending on the number of entries) receive a bye to the round of 32. All other teams (runners-up of lowest-ranked associations plus champions of associations starting from 13th) enter the qualifying round, with the group winners plus a maximum of two best runners-up advancing to the round of 32 to join the direct qualifiers.
Teams
Unlike the men's Champions League, not every association enters a team, and so the exact number of teams in each round can not be determined until the full entry list is known.
The following list the teams that qualified and might enter this season's competition. Here CH denotes the national champion, RU the national runner-up. Entries from 49 associations are possible. Two associations have no current league (Liechtenstein, San Marino). Andorra's is not played eleven-a-side. Armenia, Georgia and Luxembourg have a regular league but have not registered a team in the past seasons. After many years with only youth leagues, Azerbaijan again organises a women's league 2016/17.
1.^ Spot will only be taken, if the winner of the title holder does not qualify in the national league.Round and draw dates
UEFA has scheduled the competition as follows (all draws are held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland).