How Premier League could have SEVEN teams in Champions League with up to 11 clubs playing European football

ENGLAND could have SEVEN teams in next season’s Champions League.

And there is a chance that European competitions in 2025/26 will feature an incredible 11 English clubs.

ReutersAs many as seven English clubs could compete in the Champions League next season[/caption]

ReutersWhile inclusions in the Europa League and Conference League could bring England’s overall participation in European competition to 11[/caption]

The quirks of how Premier League sides qualify for Uefa competitions has opened up the possibility of an unprecedented English presence.

And the onus is Aston Villa, and either Tottenham or Manchester United, to set up a spectacular reverse Brexit.

England is already on course to earn a fifth spot in next season’s Champions League because of the performance of its teams in Europe so far in this campaign.

The top two nations in Uefa’s coefficient rankings at the end of the season will each get an extra spot. 

England are currently top of the table, ahead of Spain and Italy, and still have six teams left in Europe to keep earning points.

If England holds on to a top-two place, the top five finishers in the Premier League would all go into the Champions League.

But if a club finished outside the top five, yet won the Champions League, they would qualify for next season’s competition as winners.

Liverpool and Arsenal, two of the three English teams left in the CL, seem all but certain to come in the top five in the PL and so winning the CL would not make any difference.

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Yet if Villa were to repeat their European Cup triumph of 1982, while finishing outside the top five, they would also go into the CL, taking England’s total number of clubs to six.

Meanwhile Manchester United and Tottenham have next to no chance of finishing in European qualification places in the Premier League and are out of both domestic cups. 

Yet if either club wins the Europa League, they would go straight into the league phase of next season’s Champions League – taking England’s representatives to seven.

So that’s the seventh heaven scenario.

But how could four more English clubs also find themselves in Europe?

England starts every season with three allocated European places on top of however many clubs qualify for the Champions League.

The highest finisher in the PL who does not earn a CL place automatically goes into the Europa League group stage. So do the FA Cup winners.

And the team which wins the EFL Cup gets a place in the Europa Conference League play-off stage.

But if either of the winners of the domestic cups finish in the Champions League qualifying spots then the European places normally allocated to those competitions can be passed down to the next highest finishers in the PL.

Looking at the clubs left in the FA Cup, there is a decent chance that the FA Cup winners will also finish in the top five. 

Nottingham Forest, Manchester City, Brighton, Bournemouth and Villa could all do it (although if Villa finished in the top five, that would put an end to the hopes of having seven teams in the Champions League).

Similarly, Carabao Cup finalists Liverpool and Newcastle are both in the top five right now and so in line to pass down their winners’ place in the Europa Conference League to the highest finisher in the Premier League.

You can draw up a number of versions of a final league table that would see 10 clubs qualify for Europe.

But how would you reach 11?

Well, it relies on Chelsea winning the Europa Conference League and so gaining an extra English place in the Europa League – while also not qualifying for Europe by any other route.

That seems unlikely, but it remains possible.

A collapse in the Blues’ league form could see them finish outside a place which would earn a European place – 10th for example. 

As explained above, the three teams in seventh, eighth and ninth places could all gain European places by virtue of their league finish – depending on which sides fill the Champions League spots and win the domestic cups.

A Chelsea triumph in the ECL, plus either United or Spurs winning the Europa League, would see more than half of the Premier League competing in Europe next season.

There are even scenarios where finishing 11th in the PL would be enough to qualify for Europe by right.

If Spurs or United won the Europa League and also somehow finished in the top 10, along with Europa Conference League-winning Chelsea, then the Carabao Cup winners’ place in next season’s ECL would be passed down by Newcastle/Liverpool to the 11th-placed club.

So even though Liverpool seem to have sewn up the title race, there is still plenty to play for – and lots of clubs to play for it!

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