UEFA make big change to Europa Conference League that will affect West Ham, Villarreal and Lazio

West Ham United are set to have a major change to their Europa Conference League matches this season in the knockout rounds.

The Hammers have played in the competition this term, beating Danish side Viborg home and away in August in a play-off qualifying round before winning all six of their group stage matches to book a place into the round of 16.

Because West Ham won their group, they have skipped the play-off knockout round in February, with David Moyes’ side due to face one of the eight winning teams from that round in March for a place in the competition’s quarter-finals.

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In West Ham’s eight European matches so far this season, none of them have involved VAR (video assistant referees), with the competition not introducing that technology until the semi-finals in the inaugural edition of last season’s competition.

However, VAR will now be in use for the knockout rounds of this season’s competition, starting with next month’s play-off knockout round.

In the Champions League and Europa League, VAR is used for the full competition and the Europa Conference League will now follow suit for the five remaining knockout rounds of this season’s competition.

Gianluca Scamacca of West Ham United FC celebrates with Lucas Paqueta after scoring against Anderlecht (ANP via Getty Images)

West Ham will not discover their March opponents until the back end of February, with the play-off knockout round two legs taking place on February 16 and February 23.

The Hammers, Nice (France), AZ (Netherlands), Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia), Villarreal (Spain), Djurgardens (Sweden), Istanbul Basaksehir and Sivasspor (both Turkiye) won their groups in the Europa Conference this season, putting them into March’s last 16.

West Ham’s potential opponents in the round of 16 are Qarabag (Azerbaijan), Gent (Belgium), Trabzonspor (Turkiye), Basel (Switzerland), Lazio (Italy), CFR Cluj (Romania), Bodo/Glimt (Norway), Lech Poznan (Poland), Braga (Portugal), Fiorentina (Italy), AEK Larnaca (Cyprus), Dnipro-1 (Ukraine), Sheriff Tiraspol (Moldova), Partizan (Serbia), Ludogorets Razgrad (Bulgaria) and Anderlecht (Belgium).

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