UEFA have introduced quarter-finals and promotion-relegation playoffs to the Nations League.
And qualifying campaigns for future European Championships and World Cups will also have a more compact look about them for European nations.
Both of these changes were rubber-stamped at UEFA’s Executive Committee meeting today and will come into effect from 2024 onwards.
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Usually the Nations League group stage campaign finishes in November and the finals take place the following summer, as will be the case this year.
But UEFA wanted to bridge that gap in the future and have introduced home and away quarter-finals from March 2024 for the top two sides in the four League A divisions.
The winners will progress to the final four series in June.
There will also be promotion-relegation playoffs in March for the third-placed teams in League A and League B, against the runners-ups in League B and C respectively.
The side that finishes bottom in any group will still be relegated automatically while the group winners of all tiers below League A are promoted.
From September 2024 onwards, the European Championship and World Cup qualifiers in Europe will see teams drawn into 12 groups of four and five teams, rather than the current five or six.
According to UEFA, this will make the competition “less predictable and more dynamic”.
Nations drawn in five-team groups will kick off their qualifying campaigns in March, or June if involved in the Nations League quarter-finals or various playoffs.
Teams drawn in groups of four will start their qualifying campaigns in September and condense it all into a three-month schedule.
UEFA said the modified formats of both competitions will “result in more compelling ties without any increase in the overall number of matches”.
The European Championship finals themselves will remain a 24-team tournament after UEFA decided against expanding it.
UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin said: “The predictability of the European Qualifiers has been addressed and tackled.
“This will be a fresh new format that will offer all the teams an equal chance to qualify for major tournaments.
“The new format promises to bring more excitement to Europe’s national team football competitions.”
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