Football
ESPN staff 7y

Champions League to change kickoffs in group stage to two timeslots

The UEFA Champions League will play games at two different kickoff times in each matchday starting in 2018, the European governing body announced on Friday.

Currently, all games are played Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 20:45 CET (2:45 p.m. ET), allowing for exceptions for earlier start times when necessary.

But for the competition cycle running from 2018-21, two matches will kick off each day at 19:00 CET (1 p.m. ET), with six starting at 21:00 CET (3 p.m. ET). Those timeslots are similar to those already used on Thursdays in the Europa League.

The change was made at UEFA's executive committee meeting on Friday to allow "fans opportunities to watch more matches," a statement said. UEFA did not specify if the new times would extend beyond the group stage.

Further announcements from UEFA included a change to club coefficient structures, removing the 20 percent contribution of the national association coefficient to ensure clubs are ranked on their individual merit. Clubs' history of previous titles will contribute to how much prize money they earn, but not to how they will be seeded.

Following changes in August that saw the four top-ranked leagues -- currently Spain, Germany, England and Italy -- guaranteed four direct entries to the 32-team group stage, from 2018 only two teams will advance to the group stage from the qualifying rounds involving non-champions.

In addition, domestic champions eliminated in the Champions League qualifying rounds will have the chance to instead qualify for the Europa League via a dedicated champions' qualifying path. An extra €50 million per season will also be diverted from Champions League prize money to the Europa League.

The bidding process to host Euro 2024 was detailed, including a provision for joint bid. The host nation or nations will be announced in September 2018. The first deadline in the process is March 3 for member federations to confirm their interest in bidding.

Germany set sights on hosting Euro 2024 alone when it made a deal with England, which will host the Euro 2020 final and semifinals. A Scandinavian project of up to four hosts has also been suggested. However, UEFA says while two co-hosts would get automatic entry to the tournament, it will give no guarantees to countries bidding as a group of three or four hosts.

Lyon will host next season's Europa League final. The 59,286-capacity Parc OL was opened in time for Euro 2016, where it hosted six games.

The European Under-21 Championship will be hosted in Italy in 2019, with the under-19 event in Armenia and under-17 in the Republic of Ireland. In 2020, the under-19 tournament will be in Northern Ireland, while Estonia hosts the under-17s.

Information from Press Association Sport and The Associated Press was used in this report.

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