Scotland to lose Champions League automatic spot after Czech Republic take top-10 coefficient spot
Scotland earned 6.4 UEFA coefficient points this season; Czech Republic are set to overtake Scotland after Viktoria Plzen drew first leg of Europa Conference League quarter-final against Fiorentina, meaning no automatic Champions League spot for next season's Scottish Premiership winner
Image:Next season's Scottish Premiership winner will face one qualification round to enter the Champions League, while the runner-up will face three matches
Scotland will lose their automatic Champions League spot from 2025 after dropping out of UEFA's top 10 coefficient rankings on Thursday.
While this season's Scottish Premiership winner is guaranteed a Champions League group-stage place and big prize money - at least £30m - that will now be lost for whoever finishes top of the table in 2024/25.
Following Viktoria Plzen's 0-0 draw with Fiorentina in the Czech Republic, Scotland now rank outside the top 10 countries in UEFA's co-efficient standings.
Instead, the Scottish title winner will face one qualification round, and the club finishing second will need to battle through three qualifiers to reach the group stage.
How is it worked out?
The coefficient formula factors each association's performances in the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League over the past five seasons - including the current campaign.
Before Rangers' defeat to Benfica, Celtic were knocked out of the Champions League and Aberdeen were eliminated from the Europa Conference League, while Hearts and Hibernian lost out in their qualifiers.
Coefficient points
Standard points for CL, EL & ECL
Win: 2pts
Draw: 1pt
*Points are halved in qualifying rounds Bonus points Champions League
Group stage participation: 4pts
R16: 5pts
QF, SF & final: 1pt Europa League
Group winners: 4pts
Group runners-up: 2pts
R16, QF, SF & final: 1pt Europa Conference League
Group winners: 2pts
Group runners-up: 1pt
SF & final: 1pt
The number of points awarded each season is divided by the number of teams that participated for that association in that season and rounded to three decimal places.
Liechtenstein
Rankings exclude Liechtenstein, who are awarded only one ECL place (winners of the Liechtenstein Cup) because the country does not organise a national league competition and all its seven clubs compete in the Swiss league system. As a result, teams ranked below Liechtenstein would rise one place in these allocation rankings.
The final season rankings always apply to competition allocations for the season after next, so the final coefficient rankings this term will determine allocations for the competitions to start in 2025/26.
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Image:Rangers were Scotland's last representatives in European competition before losing to Benfica in the Europa League last-16
There is one caveat, however. Should Rangers win the league next season, then it is likely they could still secure group-stage Champions League football due to the club's own coefficient ranking.
It would rely on the winner of the Champions League qualifying for the next season's tournament through their league position - but were that to happen, Rangers would secure an extra spot under the new tournament format due to being the highest-ranked champion in qualifying.
CL group stages
Only countries ranking 1-10 gain automatic entry to the CL group stages .
Rangers' impressive involvement in recent seasons - which included a run to the Europa League final in 2022 - means the club are 25th in the rankings. However, if Celtic were to win the league next season, they would not benefit from this safety net, as they are much further down in the UEFA rankings which are based on results over the past five seasons.
It gets a lot tougher after that…
Scotland's had been propping up the top 10 - largely down to their impressive 2019/20 results, which generated 9.75 points after the Old Firm progressed into the Europa League knockout stages. However, that season will be wiped from the equation at the end of this campaign.
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As it stands, Scotland will start next season in 16th spot, meaning only one Scottish club would be able to take part in the Champions League for the 2026/27 campaign. They would enter at the second qualifying round, instead of earning an automatic group-stage spot and qualifying spot.
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One Scottish side would qualify for the Europa League, entering at the first qualifying round (currently one team enters the play-off and another the second qualifying round).
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Two Scottish teams would qualify for the Europa Conference League, both entering at the second qualifying round.
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