UEFA Europa Conference League trophy is unveiled; Ceferin on new competition

UEFA president, Aleksander Ceferin, unveiled the trophy for the inaugural UEFA Europa Conference League - the third-tier UEFA competition that kicks off in July - on Monday.

The list of clubs in the competition will be finalised this week, with the first winner to be crowned next May in a final at the 22,500-seat new national stadium in Albania.

The new competition was not created to prioritize seventh-place teams from Europe’s richest leagues.

The Europa Conference League will ensure some lower-ranked nations have clubs involved beyond August after years of struggling to advance to the Champions League and Europa League groups.

Since 2009, 32 teams played in the Champions League group stage and 48 in the Europa League.

Now until 2024, there will be 32 in each of the Champions, Europa and Europa Conference Leagues.

All will play in round-robin groups of four teams feeding into knockout rounds.

A quirk of the new system is that some teams will play in all three competitions next season.

Domestic title winners losing early in the Champions League qualifiers to move across to the Europa, then be eliminated again and land in the Europa Conference.