Created by independent journalist Steve Menary, the UEC's UCL Diversity Index provides an overview of the state of competitive balance at the top of the European football pyramid
The number of new clubs making their debut in the modern UEFA Champions League remains low in 2024/25 despite an expansion in the number of teams now appearing in the group stages and surprises in the biggest leagues.
In 2024/25, 12 clubs will make their first appearance in the UCL (qualifying rounds included) since the changes to the tournament in 1994/95, which led to the creation of the tournament in its modern format. This number of debutants is down from 13 in 2023/24.
The UEC's Champions League Diversity index works by dividing the total UCL appearances for each nation by the number of different clubs that took up those entries to give a national figure. The higher the index score, the lower the diversity.
Greece and Ukraine are the least diverse with just four clubs in each country sharing 56 places in the Champions League – and the significant UEFA funding that goes with that place – since 1994/95.
Countries who have been admitted to the UCL since the break-up of Yugoslavia have the widest range of clubs appearing. Five different clubs have represented Kosovo since the country began entering clubs in the UCL in 2017/18, while seven Montenegrin clubs have taken up the 18 places offered to the country since 2007/08.
In 2023/24, FK Dečić won their first Montenegrin First League title and joined 11 other teams in making their debut in the modern UCL.
Eastern Europe provided half of the debutants in the 2024/25 UCL, including KF Egnatia from Albania, FK Panevėžys from Lithuania, Kazakhstan’s FC Ordabasy, Jagiellonia Białystok from Poland and Moldova’s Petrocub Hîncești.
Four of Europe’s traditional Big Five leagues also provided debutants as the competition was expanded. Bologna, who played in the old European Cup back in 1964/65, finished fifth in Serie A in 2024/25. With Italy’s UCL places expanded to five, this was enough to return Bologna to Europe’s premier - and significantly different - top competition.
Aston Villa appear in the top tier of European football for the first time since winning the old European Cup in 1982. Spain’s Girona, which is connected to the City Football Group, also make their debut.
The other clubs taking their UCL bow in 2024/25 are France’s Stade Brestois and FC Differdange 03 from Luxembourg, which was created in 2003 from merger between AS Differdange and Red Boys Differdange, who had won six National Division titles but the last victory - and subsequent European Cup appearance - was in 1978/79.
The other debutant was AC Virtus from San Marino, where – in a rare show of solidarity – money from clubs ’appearances in UEFA competitions is pooled and shared.
This prevents the sort of long-running hegemonies fuelled by UEFA prize money from European competition that blights many countries in Europe, where leagues become formulaic and lack competition.
The changes to the UCL in 2024/25 may have provided four more places in the new restructured group stage but four of the debutants, Aston Villa from England, Spain’s Girona, Bologna from Italy and Brest from France, avoided qualifying and were gifted places in the money-spinning group stage.
These rules are tied to UEFA’s coefficient that benefits clubs from larger leagues. The last team to qualify for the group stages without this support was the Russian club Rostov in 2016/17.
In the 2024/25 UCL, the remaining eight clubs not gifted places in the group stages entered the qualifiers and five were eliminated in the first round. Two more fell in the second round and only Poland’s Jagiellonia Białystok reached the third round before losing to 5-1 on aggregate to Bodø/Glimt of Norway.
The eliminated debutants and other clubs to fall in the qualifiers get chances to enter lower tier UEFA competitions, such as the new Conference League, but the prize money from these competitions is also helping extend existing hegemonies in smaller leagues.
TNS are the only full-time club in Wales and have won 11 out of the past 13 Cymru Premier League titles, including the past three. This season, TNS became the first Welsh club to reach the group stages of the Conference, which will provide a significant cash injection to help sustain that success.
In 23 of UEFA’s 55 members, the league used as a qualifier for the 2024/25 UCL was won by the same club as the previous season. In 16 countries, the title has been won by the same club in three or more seasons in a row with Ludogorets Razgrad extending their Bulgarian run of title successes to 13 years in a row.
Elsewhere, Crvena Zvezda won a seventh Serbian Super Liga title in a row and Manchester City became the first club to win the English top-flight for a fourth successive season.
A few long running hegemonies were finally broken last season such as Bayern Munich’s 11 year run of triumphs in Germany and Red Bull’s decade-long run of success in Austria, but their replacements – Bayer Leverkusen and Sturm Graz – have regularly been awarded places in the UCL over the past three decades.
Only in Moldova, where Sheriff Tiraspol eight year run of dominance was finally broken, did a new name appear in the UCL, but Petrocub Hîncești were knocked out in the second qualifying round.
In several countries where a new name has appeared as domestic champions, this has often proved short-lived. Rangers won the Scottish Premiership in 2021/22, but Celtic have won 12 out of the last 13 titles, while Young Boys have won the Swiss Super League in five of the last six seasons, while Club Brugge have taken three of the past four Pro Leagues in Belgium.
Even in countries where there has been some diversity, that is changing. In Sweden, 11 clubs have taken up 31 UCL spots since 1994/95, but Malmo has won three of the last four Allsvenskan titles.
The UCL may offer more money and places than ever to competing clubs, but a continuing lack of diversity suggests that competitive balance remains a problem in European football.
