Barcelona in line for 2029 Champions League final as UEFA prepares major competition reforms

UEFA is expected to confirm Spotify Camp Nou as the venue for the 2029 Champions League final when its executive committee meets on Tuesday.

The Barcelona stadium is the preferred option ahead of Wembley, the other candidate to host the showpiece event. The 2027 final will be played at Metropolitano, while Munich is set to stage the 2028 final after becoming the only applicant.

UEFA’s executive committee will also decide the host cities for the 2027 and 2028 finals of the Champions League, Europa League, Conference League and UEFA Super Cup.

The meeting is expected to approve a major overhaul of men’s international competitions from 2028. Under the proposed structure, European qualifying for the World Cup and European Championship, together with the Nations League, would adopt a format similar to UEFA’s club competitions.

According to Spanish newspaper Marca, UEFA has approved the broad plan for implementation after Euro 2028. The changes follow a comprehensive review of the existing men’s international competition formats and extensive discussions with all national football associations.

From the 2028-29 season, the Nations League would be reduced from four divisions to three, with each division containing 18 teams. Each division would be split into three groups of six, and every team would play six matches against five different opponents.

Those fixtures would include home and away games against teams from different rankings, while matches against the side in the same ranking position would also be played either at home or away.

With 55 national teams taking part, the third division would include one group of seven. Its schedule would begin one international window earlier. The quarter-finals, semi-finals and promotion and relegation play-offs would remain unchanged.

European qualifying would also be divided into two sections. The first would feature 36 teams from the top two Nations League divisions, while the remaining 18 or 19 teams would enter the second section.

The first qualifying section would consist of three groups of 12 teams, drawn from three pots of 12. Each team would play six matches, home and away, against six different opponents, with two opponents selected from each pot. The format is intended to mirror UEFA’s club competitions.

The second section would follow the same structure as the Nations League’s third division, with three groups of six teams, or one group of seven.

Host nations would still qualify automatically for the finals but would take part in qualifying to determine their position in the following Nations League edition. The highest-ranked teams in each group of the first section would qualify directly, while the remaining places would be decided through play-offs designed to give teams in the second section a fair opportunity to qualify.

UEFA will present the detailed proposal for final approval at its executive committee meeting in September. A full analysis of the new system will be provided at a news conference after the meeting.