Talk:UEFA Champions League 2008-09

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[edit] Mistake in Association Team Allocation list

If you do your maths, there will be an odd number of teams in the second qualifying round:

Second Qualifying Round: (28 teams)

  • 14 winners from the First Qualifying Round
  • 9 champions from associations 16-24 (Bulgaria, Switzerland, Norway, Israel, Serbia, Denmark, Austria, Poland, and Hungary)
  • 6 runners-up from associations 10-15

This gives 29 teams!!!

The Champions of Poland and Hungary are not "certain to compete in the second qualifying round of the Champions League". As it stands at the moment, they will start in the first qualifying round.

However, they both will be 'promoted' if the winner of the current edition of the Champions League qualifies for this addition via its league position of its associated national league.--Fridge46 21:38, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Champions League holder ?

Should it be mentioned that if the Champions League holder qualifies through its national league, that the champions of Scotland (ranked 10th) will go straight to the group stage? This rule is still operable for 2008-09, isn't it? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:05, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

No, because that is false, the Russian champions will be moved back a round. Chaza 93 18:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
No, I don't believe you are correct. Russia is ranked 9th, and its champions will enter the group stages directly irrespective of who is the previous winner. Scotland, ranked 10th, will get the winner's place if the rules that applied this and last year (when Scotland, ranked 10th again, got the champions place after Arsenal lost to Barcelona) remain. These are the rules as they currently stand:
If the defending cup holder already qualified directly for the group stage of the Champions League, the champion of the 10th country on the country ranking list will gain direct access to the group stage, the champion of the 16th country on the country ranking list will gain direct access to the 3rd qualifying round, and the champions of the 26th and 27th country on the country ranking list will gain direct access to the 2nd qualifying round. Similar changes are made if the cup holder already qualified directly for one of the qualification rounds.
Did they change, and if so, please provide a source. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:49, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I have added a note to this effect as there is adequate citation on the BBC Sport website that indicates next season, if the winner finishes in the top 4 of the Italian, Spanish or English leagues then the 1st team from Scotland will get the 'Defending Champions' Spot. 86.132.166.22 (talk) 12:12, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Correction - for 'top 4' above, read 'top 2', citation has been amended accordingly 86.132.166.22 19:51, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Qualified teams

We may be being a bit hasty in filling in the teams by round as we are. By the sounds of it there's about to be a little reshuffle, to be confirmed on 1 December - from what I understand, the same teams will qualify, but some of them will be entered in different rounds, and it seems there is to be another round inserted between the Third Qual. and the Group Stage. Falastur2 (talk) 02:12, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Those "reshuffles" will come into effect for the 2009-10 UEFA Champions League, not for this one. This is because the domestic leagues were each told at the start of this (2007-08) season which places would qualify for which round of which 2008-09 European competition, and they can't change that in the middle of the season. - MTC (talk) 07:03, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
My mistake. I read a webpage which suggested that it would be implemented in this (08-09) season. Falastur2 (talk) 13:21, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dutch second team

The team qualifying for the third qualifying round is not necessarily the team that finishes 2nd in the league. In fact, teams 2-5 compete in a "play off" tournament, and the winner goes to the third qualifying round. So in fact the 5th place-team in the league can still qualify. See Eredivisie#European competition for details. JACOPLANE • 2007-12-29 17:42

[edit] First team from Poland

There is surely a mistake, since champions of Poland are written in this article that they will start from 1st qualifying round AND 2nd qualifying round. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.55.83.194 (talk) 09:58, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not completely inaccurate. This is depending on how the Champions League winners qualify. This is the same for Hungary. Kingjeff (talk) 16:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FC Zenit St Petersburg?

I don't know much about Champions League (so I'm not deleting anything) but how come FC Zenit is listed as the club which will automatically play in the group stage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.190.69.34 (talk) 14:18, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Because they won the Russian Premier League 2007.  ARTYOM  14:52, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Yep, it was me that added them. Winning the Russian league guarantees Group Stage play next season. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 15:25, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

this website has the Russian Champions playing in the Group Stage and the Runner-up in the 3rd Qualifying Round.I'm assuming a few years ago, Russian League teams did good enough to get teams into the Group Stage of Champions League. Kingjeff (talk) 16:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Yep, before 2007-08 no team from Russia qualified for the group stage automatically (champion and runner-up qualified for QR3 and QR2, respectively). It was due to Russia's low position in UEFA coefficients. Advancement in ranking occured as a result of CSKA Moscow's triumph at UEFA Cup 2004-05 and the Russian teams' successful participation in 2005-06 season. Also due to Zenit's current good performance in UEFA Cup, three Russian clubs will take part in UEFA Champions League 2009-10, two of which will qualify directly to the group stage. See here for current UEFA coefficients :)  ARTYOM  16:33, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inter-Wiki project idea

I came up with an idea of having an inter-wiki project for Champions League, UEFA Cup and UEFA Intertoto Cup. The idea is we can have match reports from Wikinews and use them on Wikipedia article for 2008-09 Champions League, 2008-09 UEFA Cup and 2008 UEFA Intertoto Cup. There should be no sourcing issues since there is a requirement of 2 sources per match report.

  1. This is an inter-promotion thing for Wikimedia Foundation.
  2. All match reports would be of the same standard.
  3. The standard NPOV will be in the match reports as required by Wikinews and Wikipedia.

There will be 213 matches for Champions League, 359 UEFA Cup matches, 78 Intertoto Cup matches for a total of 650 matches. Therefore, there will be a number of people needed to do this. If you're interested or have any questions or comments, you can ask them here or if you would like to sign-up, you can go here. Don't write how this is too big or a bad idea. This is to survey to see how viable this is. However, if you have some constructive comment or question, then feel free to add. Kingjeff (talk) 21:33, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] CSKA Sofia

CSKA Sofia are starting from Second Qualifying Round ;). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.253.155.2 (talk) 23:18, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

No they are not, due to the Champions League winners qualifying for the group stage from their league, the 16th league (Bulgaria)'s champions go into the third qualifying round, not the second. See Bert Kassies' website: Qualification and access list. - MTC (talk) 05:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Read this article - http://www.uefa.com/footballeurope/news/kind=2/newsid=690451.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.253.155.2 (talk) 17:51, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
This article was issued before the second leg of the semi-finals. That time did not secure that Manchester United and Chelsea will be played at group stage. It is secured that two teams will be contested at the group stage by league at early May. When two teams could contest at the group stage by league, the highest ranked country, Bulgaria, shifted to the third qualifying round. There is no anything be wrong. Raymond Giggs 10:44, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems that this section goes into extra time. Does anybody have a reliable Bulgarian source on the current status of CSKA? The english sources just say they "could be out", not "they are out". So I see no need to cut them until UEFA has decided their case, which will eventually be later this week. Rollback? Hockey-holic (talk) 21:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

If CSKA loses its licence, Bulgaria will not be represented in this year's Champions League. Sources:
The last source also states that UEFA will announce all participants on June 5.

Hockey-holic (talk) 09:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


It´s not true, that Bulgaria will have no team in the CL. The 2nd in the championship - Levski Sofia will participate of course! It is in the rules of UEFA!

Wrong its the team with the highest UEFA Coefficent in this case AC Milan —Preceding unsigned comment added by MattParker 119 (talk • contribs) 13:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid it is you who is wrong: see http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/jun4d.html
I'd expect Levski Sofia to enter instead. Either way to have the page now say that no Bulgarian team will enter if CSKA don't just seems misleading given that its not officially the case yet. --Simonski (talk) 14:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I suggest to wait until tomorrow (June 5th) and see what teams the UEFA announces. With CSKA and Porto out, and no one really knowing who will compete for them, its better to leave the footnotes than editing back and forth because of 20,000 different opinions. Hockey-holic (talk) 14:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

CSKA Sofia are definately out [1]. Porto are apparantly appealing. Bert Kassies' site here [2] already has Vitoria Guimaraes entering the CL group phase automatically, with Benfica moved from the UEFA Cup to CL third qualifying round, as we have here on this page. This of course assumes Porto's appeal fails. Kassies also already list Levski Sofia as Bulgaria's CL entrant. Kassies is an amateur site so not strictly a 100% reliable source but he is usually correct. The suggestion that Bulgaria might not have any CL entrant is almost certainly wrong, regardless of which newspapers have claimed it (newspapers usually don't have much grasp of UEFA rules and practices and just make assumptions). Precendents suggest UEFA will allow the 2nd place team in Bulgaria to enter (Levski) - this occured with Austria in 2001-02, FC Tirol had to withdraw and were replaced with the 2nd place team (Grazer I think). The Milan rumour is false, aside from the fact that allowing Milan to take CSKA's place would hardly be logical or fair, it would leave Italy with five teams in the CL and this is against UEFA's new rules set up in 2005 following the entry of five English clubs. Regardless, CSKA should not be on our list, they are out of the tournament (and probably out of the Bulgarian Premier League too), although maybe it's best to wait until the official announcement before including Levski on the list. MarkB79 (talk) 18:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I just removed the statement from the footnote at the bottom of the page that "no Bulgarian team will replace CSKA" because this is likely to be false and in any case, we don't know for sure until an official announcement is made. Incidentally, the Austrian situation I referred to was apparently in 2002 (not 2001) and it was Sturm Graz who replaced FC Tirol. [3] MarkB79 (talk) 19:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Just found this on Kassies, from UEFA's current CL regulations: "Article 1.07: A club which is not admitted to the competition shall be replaced by the next best-placed club in the top domestic league championship of the same national association, provided it fulfils the admission criteria. In this case, the access list for the UEFA Club Competitions (Annex Ia) will be adjusted accordingly." In other words, Levski Sofia should play in the CL qualifiers. The Milan rumour is nonsense apparently started by an Italian journalist and based on a misunderstanding. This situation is being complicated however by the fact that Levski Sofia's owner has allegedly announced that he does not want his team to play in the CL next year as he feels they are not strong enough to compete and that he will instruct the Bulgarian FA to nominate Lokomotiv Sofia instead. MarkB79 (talk) 23:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


Its official! Conformation: http://www.focus-sport.net/?do=n1148764173193 and http://gong.bg/view_article.php?article_id=47185 both respected bulgarian sites. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jurist 88 (talk • contribs) 08:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The Sofia Echo also confirms it in English language. Hockey-holic (talk) 13:36, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikinews invitation

Wikinews needs people to write news and match reports for UEFA Champions League. To sign-up, please go here. Please let me know if and when you sign-up here. Kingjeff (talk) 15:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Porto are out

They were excluded for bribing referees in 2003-2004. http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_3648676,00.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by MattParker 119 (talk • contribs) 13:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC)