Europa Conference League: Only two seasons after its inaugural season, UEFA has confirmed that they are changing the name of the Europa Conference League. They will be removing the ‘Europa’ part from the name. It will be done to make it less confusing with UEFA’s secondary competition UEFA Europa League. The name change will be effective from the 2024-25 season. Hence, teams next year will play under the Europa Conference League banner. UEFA confirms that the brand identities of the two competitions will remain close for sponsors and broadcasters.
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UEFA released a statement very recently regarding the renaming of the tournament. This statement read, “Introduced under the ‘Europa’ umbrella at the start of the 2021-24 commercial cycle, the new competition has quickly established itself amongst a broad audience after two successful seasons. Research amongst fans as well as commercial partners has found that removing ‘Europa’ from the name of the competition will enable further development as a stand-alone competition and this proposed change was approved by the UEFA executive committee.”
UEFA further said that Europa League and Conference League’s brands will remain close for the near future. It further read, “It will be effective in the new cycle, as of the 2024-25 season. Together with the UEFA Europa League, the UEFA Conference League will continue to deliver ‘Thursday Night Football’ to fans across Europe and beyond. A strong link between the competitions will remain in place as both brand identities will remain very close, and both competitions will continue to be sold to broadcast partners and sponsors together.”
The third-tier European competition only started 2 seasons ago in 2021. Jose Mourinho’s Roma won the first season of the competition in 2021-22. West Ham United won the second season beating Fiorentina in the final in 2022-23. The next season in 2023-24, teams will be playing under the banner of the same name as previous seasons, the Europa Conference League. The new name will come to effect from the 2024-25 season. The tournament has received much recognition in it’s first two seasons. However, UEFA still think the renaming will help it stand out.
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As per UEFA, they have come to the decision after discussing with commercial partners and fans. The tournament is giving more teams the chance to compete in the European level. Hence, if renaming the competition helps in any way, then it will be fruitful for all the teams as well. One team from the top 5 European competitions get into the play-offs of the tournament. Except these 5 from the top European leagues, other teams go through qualification rounds to reach the tournament finals.
The teams that have already been selected for the 2023-24 season play-offs are – Aston Villa from the Premier League, Osasuna from La Liga, Eintracht Frankfurt from the Bundesliga, Juventus from the Serie A, and Lille from Ligue 1. More teams will be qualify from the teams that will be knocked out of the Champions League and Europa League group stages. These clubs along with the ones who are in the play-offs for the 2023-24 season will be playing with the same name as the previous two seasons.
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