Europa League 2024-25: Knockout Phase Draw Date, How Does It Work

The UEFA Europa League 2024-25 knockout phase play-off draw takes place on Friday, January 31.

The draw takes place at the House of European Football in Nyon, Switzerland.

UEFA Europa League 2024-25: Format

Under the format, the top eight sides in the league phase qualify automatically for the round of 16, while the teams finishing in ninth to 24th place play off the knockout stages. The knockout phase play-off will be held in two legs to secure their path to the last 16.

The teams that finish the league phase between ninth and 16th will be seeded for the first draw for the knockout phase, and will face a team placed 17th to 24th. The seeded team will, in principle, play the return leg at home.

Potential opponents are also pre-defined by pairings of teams’ final league positions. For example, teams finishing ninth and tenth will face the sides that ended 23rd or 24th; teams finishing 11th or 12th will be drawn against either the 21st or 22nd-placed sides and so on.

The top eight clubs in the knockout phase play-offs will then make it to the round of 16.

How does the draw work?

Eight bowls are prepared for the draw, with the balls containing the names of the seeded and unseeded teams placed in the corresponding marked bowls according to the league phase rankings.

The draw starts with the unseeded teams, allocating each team from a pair of unseeded teams to one of the relevant pre-determined positions in the bracket, starting with the sides ranked 23/24 and finishing with those in 17/18.

One ball is taken from the bowl containing the two relevant ranked teams (i.e. the teams ranked 23 and 24) and is opened to display the team. 

The first team drawn from this bowl is placed in their reserved spot on the silver side of the bracket. The other unseeded team of the pairing is then drawn and displayed, and allocated in the corresponding reserved spot on the orange side of the bracket.

The same procedure is carried out with the remaining unseeded teams.

Once all the pairings of unseeded teams have been drawn and assigned to an appropriate position on the bracket, the draw continues with the seeded teams, starting with the pairing ranked 15/16. The process is the same as described above for the unseeded teams, with the first team drawn from the relevant bowl allocated to the reserved designated spot on the silver side of the bracket and the second team on the orange side.

The procedure is repeated for the remaining pairings, finishing with the teams ranked 9/10 to complete the pairings for the knockout round play-offs.

How to watch the Europa League knockout phase draw live

UEFA Europa League 2024-25 knockout phase play-off will be streamed live on UEFA.com.

Europa League 2024-25: Knockout phase play-off schedule

The knockout phase play-offs will be  played over the course of two weeks:

First legs: 13 February 2025
Second legs: 20 February 2025

Key Dates:

Knockout phase play-off draw: 31 January

Knockout phase play-offs: 13 & 20 February

Round of 16, quarter-final, semi-final draws: 21 February

Round of 16: 6 & 13 March

Quarter-finals: 10 & 17 April

Semi-finals: 1 & 8 May

Final: 21 May (Bilbao)

Also Read: Europa League 2024-25 Draw Results: Big Clashes In New Format