by Sylvain Jamet in Canada
The UEFA Women’s Champions League 2015/16 teams have been revealed and 56 clubs from 47 nations will participate in this season’s competition.
Prestigious names like Chelsea LFC and Club Athletico de Madrid will make their debut in the competition.
The other British entries are FA WSL winner Liverpool, Glasgow City for Scotland, Wexford youth WFC for Ireland, Glentoran Belfast United for Northern Ireland and Cardiff MET LAFC for Wales.
How the competition plays out
The Women’s Champions League tournament is divided in two parts:
The previous holders, along with the top two clubs in the eight highest-ranked countries, and the champions of the next seven associations will be put through to the round, which consists of 32 teams.
Germany will have three entries as the title holders 1.FFC Frankfurt did not finish in the top two places in the Frauen Bundesliga.
France, Sweden, England, Russia, Italy, Spain and Denmark are the other countries with two entries.
There is then a qualifying round where 32 teams are divided into eight groups that will play to progress. Eight group winners will join the 24 teams put through to the knock-out stage.
In the last 32 round, 16 teams are seeded according to their UEFA WCL coefficient. This coefficient takes into account the points won by the club in the competition over the last five years, which is added to 33% of the national association coefficient, also from the last five years.
Chelsea LFC will not be one of the 16 teams seeded because their club coefficient is 0 as they are just making their debut in the competition. Therefore their coefficient is only 33% of the England’s, which is 19.140.
Liverpool LFC will be seeded as they played in last season’s competition and gained five points, making their coefficient is 24.140 (5+19.140).
The teams
Below are the biggest teams coefficients and their ranking. Eight more teams will be added from the qualifying round but only one has a bigger coefficient than Liverpool, therefore Liverpool are guaranteed to be seeded unlike last season when they drew a Swedish side in the last 32 Round and were eliminated.
1 1. FFC Frankfurt (GER, holders) 72.680
2 Olympique Lyonnais (FRA) 115.080
3 VfL Wolfsburg (GER)* 97.680
4 FC Rosengård (SWE) 69.295
5 Paris Saint-Germain (FRA)* 59.080
6 Brøndby IF (DEN) 52.870
8 Glasgow City FC (SCO) 38.570
10 FC Barcelona (ESP) 36.530
12 FC Bayern München (GER) 31.680
14 Liverpool LFC (ENG) 24.140
16 KIF Örebro DFF (SWE)* 20.295
18 Chelsea LFC (ENG)* 19.140
*runner-up in their national competition
Here is the tournament calendar :
Tournament calendar
Qualifying round draw: 14.00CET, 25 June
Qualifying round: 11–16 August
Round of 32 draw: 20 August
Round of 32: 7/8 & 14/15 October
Round of 16 draw: 19 October
Round of 16: 11/12 November & 18/19 November
Quarter-final & Semi-final draw: 27 November
Quarter-finals: 23/24 & 30/31 March
Semi-finals: 23/24 & 30 April/1 May
Final (Reggio Emilia): 26 May
By the 20th of August we will know if Chelsea LFC will be lucky enough to avoid any big side, they cannot draw Liverpool before the last 8, but they can certainly draw three German giants, two French favourites or a Swedish top quality team.
Unfortunately for Chelsea LFC that is a 40% chance to draw a top quality side. While Liverpool LFC will certainly draw a weaker side and should go through to the last 16 round.