Olympiacos earn automatic place in 2025/26 league phase thanks to Champions League rebalancing

Olympiacos have secured an automatic place in the league phase of the 2025/26 UEFA Champions League. Both 2024/25 finalists, Paris and Inter, have already qualified via their domestic league position, paving the way for the Greek champions to enter directly.

Last updated: 09:00 CET on Monday 12 May.

One of the main principles of the new European club competition format post-2024 is the important role of the club coefficient – namely, a club's performance in European club competitions over the current five-year period.

It is for this reason that should the Champions League winners have also qualified for the league phase via their domestic league position (as is now guaranteed to be the case this season), the club with the best individual coefficient of all the domestic champions involved in qualifying (the domestic champions of the national associations ranked 11 to 55*) will enter the league phase directly instead of the original round they had qualified for according to the access list.

Shakhtar Donetsk were the first such team – with the best individual coefficient of all the relevant domestic champions – to enter the league phase for 2024/25.

Note that the domestic title winners from associations one to ten will have already automatically qualified for the league phase.

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What does this mean in practice? 

The top ten coefficients for the current league leaders from associations 11–55 are as follows:

Olympiacos (GRE) – 56.500 (champions)
Bodø/Glimt (NOR) – 49.000 (champions)
Copenhagen (DEN) – 44.875
Crvena Zvezda (SRB) – 44.000 (champions)
Ferencváros (HUN) – 39.000
Celtic (SCO) – 38.000 (champions)
Slovan Bratislava (SVK) – 33.500 (champions)
Basel (SUI) – 33.000 (champions)
Qarabağ (AZE) – 32.000 (champions)
Ludogorets (BUL) – 24.000 (champions)

The top ten coefficients for all clubs from associations 11–55 are as follows:

Rangers (SCO) – 71.250 (2nd in domestic league)
Olympiacos (GRE) – 56.500 (champions)
GNK Dinamo (CRO) – 56.000 (2nd)
Shakhtar (UKR) – 52.000 (3rd)
Bodø/Glimt (NOR) – 49.000 (champions)
Salzburg (AUT) – 48.000 (4th)
Copenhagen (DEN) – 44.875 (1st)
Crvena Zvezda (SRB) – 44.000 (champions)
PAOK (GRE) – 42.250 (3rd)
Ferencváros (HUN) – 39.000 (1st)

As Greek Super League champions, Olympiacos are now set to take the UEFA Champions League winners' league phase berth. This is because they have the highest coefficient of all the champions from associations 11–55, as well as a higher coefficient than any other club still in contention to be champions in associations 11–55.

This does not account for any potential disciplinary or licensing matters. Therefore the above is still pending final admittance of clubs to the relevant competitions. All Russian teams are suspended from participation in UEFA competitions until further notice.

*Note that as Liechtenstein does not have its own domestic league, its clubs play in the Swiss football league system.

The latest 2025/26 men's UEFA club competition access lists are available here.