Race for European football ends with Man Utd qualifying for Europa League and Newcastle missing out
Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Aston Villa will play in the Champions League next season; Tottenham and Man Utd qualify for the Europa League; Chelsea will play in the Europa Conference League
Image: Newcastle have missed out on Europe after Man Utd won the FA Cup
Manchester United’s FA Cup win means they will play in the Europa League next season and Newcastle miss out on European qualification.
The winners of the FA Cup – won by United on Saturday at Wembley – are handed a Europa League place meaning despite finishing eighth, Erik ten Hag’s side will be playing in Europe next season.
The knock-on effect of that means Chelsea, who finished sixth in the Premier League, will now play in the Conference League and seventh-placed Newcastle miss out completely on European football.
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Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool and Aston Villa will play in the Champions League.
But the Europa League and Conference League places are still up for grabs, with Tottenham, Manchester United, Newcastle and Chelsea all in the mix.
Who has qualified for Europe?
Champions League: Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Aston Villa
Europa League: Tottenham, Man Utd
Conference League: Chelsea
How does the new Champions League format work?
Image: The Champions League format is changing for next season
Taking the total number of teams from 32 to 36 in the Champions League, the biggest change will see a transformation from the traditional group stage to a single league phase including all participating teams.
Every club will now be guaranteed a minimum of eight league-stage games against eight different opponents (four home games, four away) rather than the previous six matches against three teams, played on a home-and-away basis.
The top eight sides in the league will qualify automatically for the knockout stage, while the teams finishing in ninth to 24th place will compete in a two-legged play-off to secure their path to the last 16 of the competition.
Teams ranked 25-36 are eliminated from all competitions.
Europa League and Europa Conference League changing too?
Similar changes will be made to the Europa League and Europa Conference League formats, with 36 teams in each.
Teams in the Europa League will have eight matches against eight different opponents in the league phase.
In the Europa Conference League – renamed the UEFA Conference League – teams will have six matches against six different opponents in the league phase. The UEFA Conference League games will be played between September and December.
The knockout phase of the competitions will take place through the second half of the season and culminate at the end of the campaign, as they do now.
Sourse: skysports.com