The 2023âÂÂ24 UEFA Europa Conference League was the third season of the UEFA Europa Conference League, Europe's tertiary club football tournament organised by UEFA.
The final was played at the Agia Sophia Stadium in Athens, Greece. It was won by Olympiacos, who defeated Fiorentina 1âÂÂ0 after extra time, and qualified for the 2024âÂÂ25 UEFA Europa League league stage as a result.
This edition was the final season under this name, as it was renamed to the UEFA Conference League from the 2024âÂÂ25 season onwards. According to UEFA, the new denomination of the competition would enable further development as a stand-alone competition in their research amongst fans and commercial partners. This was also the final season with the format of 32 teams participating in the group stage, after UEFA announced that a brand-new Swiss-system format would be introduced for the following edition. Due to the change, no clubs could be transferred from the Europa League group stage to the Conference League, so starting with this edition the winners would no longer be able to defend their title.
As the title holders, West Ham United qualified for the 2023âÂÂ24 UEFA Europa League. They were unable to defend their title after advancing to the Europa League knockout phase.
A total of 178 teams from 54 of the 55 UEFA member associations (excluding Russia) participated in the 2023âÂÂ24 UEFA Europa Conference League. The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:
For the 2023âÂÂ24 UEFA Europa Conference League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2022 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2017âÂÂ18 to 2021âÂÂ22.
Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Europa Conference League, as noted below:
The following is the access list for this season.
Due to the suspension of Russia for the 2023âÂÂ24 European season, the following changes to the access list were made:
Combining with the Champions League title holder (Manchester City) qualifying for the Champions League group stage via their domestic league, the following changes to the access list were made:
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
The second qualifying round, third qualifying round and play-off round were divided into Champions Path (CH) and Main Path (MP).
One team not playing in a national top division took part in the competition: Vaduz (2nd tier).
Notes
The schedule of the competition was as follows. Matches were scheduled for Thursdays apart from the final, which took place on a Wednesday, though exceptionally could take place on Tuesdays or Wednesdays due to scheduling conflicts.
The draw for the group stage was held on 1 September 2023, 14:30 CEST, in Monaco. The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots, each of eight teams, based on their club coefficients. Teams from the same association could not be drawn into the same group.
All teams besides AZ, Ballkani, Bodø/Glimt, Fiorentina, Gent, HJK, Maccabi Tel Aviv, PAOK, Slovan Bratislava and Zorya Luhansk made their debut appearances in the group stage. Breiðablik, ÃÂukariÃÂki, KÃÂ, Olimpija Ljubljana and Zrinjski Mostar all made their debut appearances in a UEFA competition group stage. Breiðablik, Kàand Zrinjski Mostar were the first teams from Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Bosnia and Herzegovina, respectively, to play in a UEFA competition group stage. Breiðablik also became the first ever team to qualify for the group stages of a UEFA club competition after starting in a preliminary round.
A total of 28 national associations were represented in the group stage.
In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.
Statistics exclude qualifying rounds and play-off round.
The UEFA technical study group selected the following players as the team of the tournament.