What it is all about
Let’s start with some good news: Football is slowly starting again after COVID-19, with major leagues like the Bundesliga coming back to the action and most probably the Spanish La Liga and Italy’s Serie A to follow. On the other hand, we still have not got an idea about the European competitions. The 2020 Champions League Final should have been played in Istanbul on 30 May 2020, but will not take place so soon. Hopefully UEFA will come up with some ideas fairly soon.
This of course gives us time to look at some basics about charter flights for the Champions League, which are in parts the same as for the Europa League of course. Part of the framework is given by UEFA and then there is the geography of Europe (plus neighboring parts of Asia, like Kazakhstan, Israel) plus the clubs’ demands. On the opposite side we have the airlines who may or may not have specific aircraft available for these jobs. All of this leads to an interesting mix of air operations that we get to see every two to three weeks usually.
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| Swiftair once operated this MD-83 on behalf of Real Madrid. The plane was seen in Madrid in December 2007, although at a time when the contract had already been terminated again. It had some operational limitations that did not please the players very much. |
Over several postings I would like to spread some insights and observations, but also thoughts and of course the odd picture taken over the years. After all I have been lucky to welcome many Champions League charter flights myself when teams came to visit FC Basel at St. Jakob Park. I have also visited the airports of Munich and Berlin for the 2012 and 2015 Champions League Finals, which both yielded a good mix of passenger aircraft and numerous private jets. Now I want to take things back to the basics, so let us have a look at what is the Champions League and what its calendar looks like these days.
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| A plain normal Lufthansa Airbus A321? No, FC Bayern München arriving in Basel for a Champions League game in September 2010. |
The basic idea of the Champions League is to create a football competition for all the national champions across Europe. From the 55 national associations that are part of UEFA, 54 usually enter their national champions. The exception is Liechtenstein, where FC Vaduz plays in the Swiss league system (as do the other clubs, but Vaduz are miles better than everyone else). Another 25 clubs take part in the competition as runners-up and 3rdor 4thplaced teams in their respective championships. This adds up to 79 regular berths, but only 32 clubs make it to the actual final competition. This is why there are no less than five qualifying rounds.
Qualifying starts towards the end of June, barely four weeks or so after the previous final (in “normal” years of course). The champions of the four bottom-ranked associations battle it out in two K.O. rounds for one spot in the first qualifying round. Three qualifying rounds with two-legged ties follow until the early crescendo that is the play-off round. Throughout the entire qualifying period, matches are played every week in July and August. Depending on your local team and its chances to qualify for anything in European football, this may already be the time to make hay.
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| Windrose Aviation sent this Airbus A320 for the Dynamo Kyiv team and staff to Basel-Mulhouse for the 2016-17 Champions League qualifiers. Dynamo played in Berne against BSC Young Boys, then runners-up of the Swiss Super League. |
From September to December, the 32 qualified teams play six rounds of group stage games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Usually matches are held every two or three weeks. A gap of three weeks will normally be used for national team matches. Each team will have travelled three times at least by December. The planning safety of the group stage quite often means that travel arrangements are know well in advance. Also, scheduling measures are taken to avoid supporters’ clashes and congestion on airports.
From February of the following calendar year, the knock-out stages take place. In the round of 16, the group winners face second-placed teams from other groups. The third-placed teams play in the Europa League round of 32. The Champions League round of 16 is usually held across four weeks, two weeks each for the first and second legs, with an extra week in between. As you may have guessed, there is no practical reason to this, but just commercial reasons. The quarterfinals are held in successive weeks in April, while the semifinals usually happen towards the end of April and in early May.
The Champions League Final usually takes place in the second half of May, depending on the year. In odd years, there is more flexibility due to no national team competition that follows in June. Therefore a final in odd years can also be held in early June. In straight years, finals tend to be held as early as in the third week of May to comply with the compulsory stand-down rules for the national team players.
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| Busy times in Munich during the airlift for the 2012 Champions League final. Chelsea FC supporters arrived with many large planes, for exampe this Virgin Atlantic Airbus A340-600 or the Thomas Cook Scandinavia Airbus A330-300 in the background. |
In its initial calendar draft for the 2020-2021 season, UEFA has outlined 46 days on which matches should be played. Whenever possible, matches are spread across Tuesday and Wednesday, even in the qualifying rounds. Unforeseen circumstances could even add more days to the calendar. For comparison, the first European Cup season in 1955-1956 featured 16 teams as opposed to the current 79. The scheduling back in the day led to 23 days with matches though, with one game even played on Christmas Day.
The maximum number of matches a team could play is 23, though it is highly unlikely that this will ever be reached. In the 2018-2019 season, Ajax played 18 games and only missed out on their 19thwhich would have been the final by a Tottenham goal deep into injury time. Serbian champions Red Star Belgrade also had a long season, playing 14 games from the first qualifying round until the final group stage round. Finalists Tottenham and Liverpool played 13 games each. Across both European competitions, SL Benfica played 16 games.
So much for the scheduling basics of the Champions League. There are some more details to it, but these may feature in a later post. The next post will be about who is traveling to a game – and how.
