Champions League 2025 Betting Offers

The richest and most prestigious club football tournament in the world attracts billions of pound in revenue, with the champions able to earn an enormous £100 million overall for winning this years competition.  When you’ve got that much money flowing around it means the bookies provide some of the best odds and highest value betting promotions that they can offer for the Champions League and Europa League.

We have selected the top Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League offers from the UK’s top bookies to save you having to trawl the best prices and deals.  On this page you can find descriptions of the very latest and long term regular European Cup offers throughout the year for all customers, new and existing.  We also list fixtures and information about the Champions League format, European Cup history, previous winners, stats and more.

Champions League Final Betting Offers

New Customer

Bet £10 Get £50 In Free Bets

New customers only. Register with BETFRED50. Deposit £10+ via Debit Card and place first bet £10+ at Evens (2.0)+ on Sports within 7 days to get 3 x £10 in Sports Free Bets & 2 x £10 in Acca Free Bets within 10 hours of settlement. 7-day expiry. Eligibility & payment exclusions apply. T&Cs apply. #ad

Claim

T&Cs apply 18+

Bet £5 Get £20

18+ New UK+IRE customers. Paypal and certain deposit types and bet types excluded. Min £5 bet within 14 days of account reg at min odds 1/2 = 4 x £5 free bets. Free bets valid for 4 days on sports, stake not returned, restrictions apply. T&Cs apply. #ad

Claim

T&Cs apply 18+

Bet £10 Get £30

18+ New customers only. Opt in, bet £10  at odds 2.00+ within 10 days, no cashout. Get 6x £5 Free Bets, set events at odds 2.00+. 7 day bonus expiry. T&Cs apply. gambleaware.org | Please Gamble Responsibly #ad

Claim

T&Cs apply 18+

Featured Offers

Two Goals Ahead Early Payout Offer

Get your single bets paid out if the team you back goes 2 goals ahead - for multiple bets the selection will be marked as a winner with bet365.

Applies to pre-match single and multiple bets on the standard Full Time Result market for applicable competitions. Only available to new and eligible customers. Bet restrictions and T&Cs apply. Registration required.

Claim Offer

T&Cs Apply, 18+ Only, gambleaware.org #ad

Existing Customer Promotions

Bore Draw Money Back For 0-0 CL Games

Money back on Champions League bets if the game ends 0-0. Pre-match, match result singles only. First bet on the 1X2 market only. Free bets to be credited within 24hrs of settlement. Free bet min odds 1/2. #ad

Claim

T&Cs apply 18+

Unlimited Places 1st Goalscorer Each-Way

Have an Each-Way First Goalscorer bet on any match with bet365, and be safe in the knowledge that if your player scores at any time during the game bet365 will pay you out! Each-Way bets are settled on all goalscorers, at 1/3 odds for unlimited places in 90 minutes play. Registration required. #ad

Claim

T&Cs apply 18+

Double / Treble 1st Goalscorer Payout

Double delight gives you 2x the odds if your first goalscorer scores twice, hat-trick heaven gives you 3x if they score three times. Now availabele in play as well as pre-match, all winnings real cash, 90 minutes only #ad

Claim

T&Cs apply 18+

Up To 70% Soccer Acca Bonus (Selected Leagues)

Applies to pre-match accumulators of 3+ selections on the standard Full Time Result, Both Teams to Score or Result/Both Teams To Score markets only. Bonus percentage is dependent on number of selections. Bonus capped at £100k and applied to returns. Bet restrictions and T&Cs apply. New and eligible customers only. Registration required. #ad

Claim

T&Cs apply 18+

2024-2025 Champions League Fixtures

2025 Champions League Final

2025 Europa League Final

2025 Europa Conference League Final

English Club League Phase Fixtures

Arsenal

Aston Villa

Liverpool

Man City

Champions League Format

Qualifying

After a lot of initial chopping and changing the Champions League qualification format  remained roughly unchanged from 2008 to 2024.  Teams either qualified directly or entered into pre-knock-out rounds for a place in the final 32.

From 2025 onwards the Champions League has expanded and will now 36 teams in the tournament proper from 81 teams total that either qualify directly or go through qualification rounds.  In total 53 different associations get a chance to be in the Champions League.

The previous group stage has been replaced by a League phase and teams will now play a minimum of 8 matches instead of the previous 6.  There is also a new play-off round after the league phase, teams ranked 1-8 go straight to the last 16 and teams ranked 9-24 enter to play off to decide the other 8 teams.  We will get on to all of that in a moment, but here we are looking at how you qualify for the league phase final 36.

Automatic qualification is dependent on the UEFA coefficient ranking of that countries league combined with league position.

Qualification for the tournament proper has changed due to the four extra places now available.  It works as follows:

• Champions from associations ranked 1-10 (10 places)
• Runners-up from associations ranked 1-6 (6 places)
• Third placed teams from associations ranked 1-5 (5 places)
• Fourth placed teams from associations ranked 1-4 (4 places)
• Two teams from the top two associations with the highest coefficient in the previous campaign who did not qualify. For 2024-2025 this was Borussia Dorumund (5th place in Bundesliga) and Bologna (5th place Serie A) (2 places)
• Previous winner of the Champions League and Europa League if they have not qualified through their domestic league.  If that is the case ‘rebalancing’ positions are given to other associations as follows (+/- 2 places)
• Champion from associations ranked 11-14 with the highest coefficient, for 2024/25 this is Shakhtar Donetsk from Ukraine ranked 14th (+/- 1 place)
• Runner up from associations 7-10 with the highest coefficient, for 2024/25 this is Benfica who were second place in Portugal, ranked 7th (+/- 1 place)
• Five winners from the Champions Path Play-Off (5 places)
• Two winners from the League Path Play-Off (2 places)

The Champions League winners and Europa league winners from last season also receive an automatic league place, however if these teams have already qualified through their league it means all the remaining places are available to qualifiers.  For 2024/25 both Atalanta and Bayern Leverkusen qualified through their leagues anyway so those extra places are given to other associations as shown in the list above.

The remaining 7 places are made up from the qualifying rounds.  Qualification takes place in two steams.

The Champions stream is a knock out between the league winners of the 11th to 55th UEFA ranked league, these enter between the 1st round to the third round based on UEFA rankings.   The remaining 10 teams in this path after the third round enter then the play-off round to decide the five places from this path.

The league stream contains the rest, i.e. the runners up, third and fourth placed teams, that do not directly qualify.  Teams again enter at different stages dependent on league ranking.  This results in 4 teams entering the play-off round with the two winners going into the league phase of the tournament proper.

The play-off is therefore made up of:

• Champions of teams ranked 11th – 13th
• Champion from association 19 (Croatia in 2024/25) – the association with the highest coefficient
• 6 teams from the champions stream
• 4 teams from the non-champions, league path

These 14 teams then play a one off knockout with the 7 winners joining the other 29 direct qualifiers in the league stage.

All teams eliminated from the Champions and League path get to enter the Europa League or Europa Conference League, either in their qualifying rounds or directly into their league phases.  For example, the losers in the play-off rounds from both paths will enter into the Europa League proper in the league phase.

Does that all sound a bit complicated?  Well, UEFA don’t like to make things more simple do they.

League Phase

For the 2024-25 season the format of the Champions League has changed.  Naturally they were never going to make it smaller and have expanded the number of teams from 32 to 36.  This will result in teams that qualify now playing eight games between September and January in the league phase. Original proposals suggested teams would play ten league phase matches but this was reduced to eight instead.

The group phase has been abandoned and instead all teams will compete in a single league.  Teams will play four home ties and four away ties but all against different opponents.  Points are awarded as standard; 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw with goal difference and then goals scored coming into play if teams are tied.

The top eight teams in the league go straight through to the last 16, teams places 9th to 24th enter into a two-legged play-off round with 9th-16th teams seeded in that draw.  The winners of the play-off ties join the other 8 in the last 16.  The knockout stage is played as before.

The qualification system will work in the same way for the original 32 places.  The additional four places will be filled as follows:

• An additional place to the 3rd placed team in the country ranked 5th in the UEFA ranking
• An additional place for a domestic league champion through the ‘Champions Path
• Two places awarded to the countries that performed the best in the previous season of UEFA competitions (how those places will be allocated remains to be seen and it may be up to the countries themselves to give out the sports, such as to the 5th placed team in the league or to the winners of the domestic cup).

Plans to award two places to teams with the highest UEFA coefficients who did not qualify were also abandoned on the basis it would act a safety net to the bigger teams who have a bad season.

The idea behind the changes being flouted is it will give teams more to play for for longer in the league phase vs the group phase.  In reality we know that the real reason is it adds at two extra games for each team along with a whole play-off round of 16 fixtures.  This gives them more matches to sell as part of TV and commercial deals.

Quite how this is supposed to fit in with already hectic domestic and international schedules along with a new enlarged club world cup and an enlarged World Cup remains to be seen.  Similar plans are being rolled out for the Europa League (8 game league phase) and Europa Conference League (6 game league phase), both of which will have 36 berths.

Teams ranked 25 or below do no drop down to the Europa League or Conference League anymore.  Those teams are now eliminated from European competition at that stage.

Knock-Out Stages

The league phase takes place between September and January, there is no longer a winter break unless you finish 1-8 in the league and go straight to the Last 16, where you get a month off.  If you finish 9-24th you will enter a two legged play off round in February with teams ranked 9-16 seeded against teams ranked 17-24.

This produces a further 8 teams to join the 8 the made it to the last 16 directly.  From that point on the competition continues as a knockout as before.

At the final 16 stage the 8 teams that qualified directly from the league are seeded but there is no longer country protection in place, meaning teams form the same league can be drawn together.  Teams play two legs, home and away, with the overall winner on aggregate going through.

The draw for the knockout rounds is now also made in one go in February.  This means, like the World Cup, for example, you know what path you are in at the knockout stage and what teams you could meet should your team go through.  The fact the top 8 teams are seeded it makes it even more likely you will see the big names like Read Madrid in the final stages.

From 1965 until 2021 away goals counted, that meant if a match is drawn over two legs the team with the most goals away from home would go through.  If teams were equal on away goals the tie would progress to extra time and penalties.

The away goals rule was brought in to encourage away teams to attack at a time when home advantage was more significant.  In more recent times away goals have counted less as pitches are more consistent and advances such as VAR help equal things up.  If anything the away goals rule was preventing home teams attacking in fear of conceding a goal and so UEFA abolished the law for the 2021-22 season onwards.

Both the quarter and semi-finals follow the same format although at this stage the draw is completely random as any country protection is removed.

The final takes place in mid-May each year at a venue chose prior to the start of the season. This is intended to be a neutral venue although in several instances in the past a finalist has ended up playing at their home stadium.

Prize Money

The actual money that teams get from the Champions League is variable as it depends a lot of commercial TV rights and that is dictated by the value of the TV market for each nation.  Therefore the team that wins it doesn’t always earn the most money from it.  For example, when Bayern won it in 2020 they earned €125.46 million with €112.96 million of that being prize money.  PSG who were runners up earned less prize money, €101.3 million, but more overall, €126.8 million.

Looking at the prize money in isolation and not the TV money this is what teams can earn now:

• €25M – Champions
• €18.5M – Runners-Up
• €15M – Semi-Finals
• €12.5M – Quarter-Finals
• €11M – Last 16
• €1M – Knockout Play-Offs
• €2M – League Phase Top 8
• €1M – League Phase 9-16
• €2.1M – League Phase Match Win
• €0.7M – League Phase Match Draw
• €18.62M – League Phase Base Fee
• €4.29M – Play-Off Round

The prize money is cumulative too.  Let’s say a team wins all 8 league phase matches they would get 18.62M base fee and 8 x 2.1M match fees (35.42M).  They then get €2M for finishing in the top 8, €11M for the last 16, €12.5M for the quarters, €15M for the semis and €25M for winning it: 35.42 + 2 + 11 + 12.5 + 15 + 25 = 100.92 million.  That is before any TV money would be added on.

Even if a team finishes bottom of the League Phase with eight losses they will still earn €18.62M, which is staggering and shows why teams try harder to qualify for the CL than win the likes of the FA Cup.

Previous Winners

Most Successful European Cup Teams

Most Successful English Teams

Data current to end of 2024 Campaign and includes European Cup and Champions League

Future Champions League Final Venues

History of the European Cup / Champions League

Early Days

In similar fashion to the European Championships the creation of a Europe wide club competition was largely delayed for political reasons brought about by the second world war.  By the mid 1950’s most other continents had a national club competition and as with the origin of the Euros it was the French that pushed through a European Club Cup.

Smaller tournaments existed both before and after WWII but these were restricted, such as the Challenge Cup between teams in the Austro-Hungarian empire and the Latin Cup in which Mediterranean clubs competed.

After a visiting the South American Championship of Champions two journalists at the French publication L’Equipe championed the creation of a similar tournament in Europe.  This eventually culminated in the creation of the European Champions of Clubs’ Cup in 1995.

Initially 16 clubs competed in a knock-out cup.  The first European Cup saw Scottish champions Hibernian compete but at this time the English FA banned the English champions Chelsea from entering.  The first final was held in Paris in 1955 and was won 4-3 by Real Madrid.

European Cup

The following year in 1956 Manchester United decide to enter the Cup against the advice of the FA.  This did nothing to dent the dominance of Real Madrid who won consecutive titles in 1956.  In 1957 on of the biggest ever strategies in football occurred to the Manchester United squad.  Flying back victorious from a semi-final against Red Star Belgrade the club plane crashed during a fuel layover in Munich, the resulting fire killed 23/44 on board including many of the ‘Busby Babes’.  It took Manchester United over ten years to recover from the disaster.

Real Madrid continued to dominate in the early days winning all of the first five European Cups to 1960.  Benfica then won two consecutive titles before AC Milan won in 1963 followed by Inter Milan in 1964 and 1965 and Real Madrid again in 1966.

1967 saw the first ever British Champions in Celtic that started a 15 year spell of British success in the European Cup.  Manchester United won the cup in 1968 ten years after the Munich disaster.  This was followed period of Dutch success in the early 1970’s that included Celtic beaten by Feyenoord in the 1970 final before Ajax won three European Cups on the bounce between 1971-1973.  It was Bayern Munich’s turn next as they won the cup three years back to back from 1974-76.

The most successful manager in European Cup history, Bob Paisley, lead the most successful British club in Europe, Liverpool, to their first title in 1977 beating Borussia Monchengladbach in Rome 3-1.  Liverpool won the title back to back beating Real Madrid 1-0 at Wembley in 1978 before Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest became the only team to win the European Cup more times than their own domestic league winning back to back in 1970 (Vs Malmo) and 1980 (Vs Hamburg).

Liverpool took the crown back in 1981 beating Real Madrid 1-0 in Paris before Aston Villa got in on the act winning their first an only title in 1982.  Hamburg won in 1983 before Liverpool grabbed their fourth crown with a 1-0 victory over Roma at their home stadium in Rome.

The Heysel disaster in 1985 saw British clubs banned from Europe for 5 years.  Disruption in the Liverpool section of the stadium in the final against Juventus led to a wall collapsing killing 39 mainly Italians.  The match carried on but Liverpool lost 1-0 on the night.

The vacuum left by the absence of English teams meant no one dominated with 6 clubs winning the following 7 titles up to 1992.

The Champions League

In 1993 the old European Cup was changed to the Champions League.  The money and prestige that went with this has helped to make the competition one of the most watched and most valuable in the world.

Marseille won the first and only title for a French team in 1993.  They were banned the following year and stripped of their Ligue 1 title following match fixing allegations against their chairman, Bernard Tapie.

AC Milan won in 1994 followed by Ajax in 1995, Juventus in 1996 and Borrusia Dortmund in 1997.  In 1998 Real Madrid won their 7th title after a 32 year gap.  This was also the first year that non-champions were allowed entry to the competition.

Manchester United won their second title in 1998 beating Bayern Munich 2-1 with two injury time goals.  They were the first team to win the cup having not been Champions of their own league, they also still hold the record for winning the cup with the fewest victories, five.

Real Madrid began a new era of dominance winning in 2000 and 2002, Bayern won in 2001, Milan got their 6th crown in 2003 and Porto were victors in 2004.  Liverpool won their 5th European Cup in 2005 beating AC Milan on penalties in Istanbul following a 3-3 draw.  This is cited as the most exciting ever European final with underdogs Liverpool down and out 3-0 down at half time, they scored 3 goals in 7 minutes during the second period and went on to win the shoot-out.

The last ten years or so have been dominated by Italy, Spain and England.  Barcelona have emerged as the new dominant force winning in 2006 (Vs Arsenal), 2009 (Vs Juventus), 2011 (Vs Manchester United) and 2015 (Vs Juventus).  Real Madrid not to be outdone claimed ‘La Decima’ winning the European Cup for the 10th time in 2014 beating rivals Atletico in the final.

AC Milan got revenge on Liverpool beating them in the 2007 final and Bayern Munich became the only German team to win since 2001 by beating rivals Borrusia Dortmund in the 2013 final at Wembley.

Real Madrid Dominate Again

The 2016 final was held at the San Siro in Milan in a repeat of the 2014 final between local rivals Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid.  Madrid took the game on penalties to win the trophy for an amazing 11th time leaving Atletico heart broken yet again.  The 2017 final was played at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff but it was Real Madrid, and Ronaldo in particular, who dominated yet again, beating Juventus to win their second title in a row, and 12th in total.

The 2018 Champions League was played in the Olimpiyskiy National Sports Complex, Kiev Ukraine.  Liverpool impressed getting to the final with one of the highest goal tally’s ever.  It was however Madrid who won yet again for the third successive year in a row, 13th time in total, following a spectacular over head kick goal from Welshman Gareth Bale and two horrendous mistakes by Liverpool’s goalkeeper.

The 2019 final was held in Madrid and it was hard to see Real not winning it for the fourth time in a row in their local rivals stadium, Atletico Madrid’s Wanda Metropolitano.  It was however Liverpool in the end who reached the final to avenge their 2018 defeat and they gained their sixth European crown beating Tottenham 2-0 in a lackluster all English Final.

Despite the fact the final was forgettable the journey was not with both Liverpool and Spurs staging amazing semi-final comebacks.  There were more games won from behind in this season that some regard it was the best campaign ever for excitement (if you are a neutral).

In 2022 Real Madrid were far from the best team in Europe but the record winners always seem to find a way to win.  They defeated PSG, Chelsea and Man City as underdogs, all involving dramatic comebacks, to meet Liverpool again in a heavyweight final.  Madrid were again the underdogs and dominated by Liverpool but managed to find the crucial goal for a 1-0 win to take their 14th European Cup home.  The final was moved from St Petersburg to Paris in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

2024 was basically a repeat of the 2022 final in that Real Madrid were not the best team and were as much as 10/1 to win it pre-season.  This time they met a fantastic Dortmund team, probably their best ever, who really should have been out of sight by half-time.  Real did what Real do, though, they stayed in the game through luck and class and in the final quarter they scored two goals to put the game to bed and claim an astonishing 15th European Cup.  The final was at Wembley where Dortmund lost to Bayern in 2013.  This was a much better team, however, and if they had played anyone other than Madrid they would have won their first cup.

2020 & 2021 Special Years

The corona virus outbreak in 2020 saw the cancellation of football in March, right in the middle of the last 16 second legs.  Football did not resume until June at which point UEFA opted to complete the Champions League over two weeks in a single leg knockout competition from the quarter-finals onwards, with all matches held in Lisbon.

Bayern Munich won their sixth title against PSG in the latest ever final (23rd August) but the year will be remembered most for the special circumstances.  One of the big benefits to come from this was how much people enjoyed the single-leg rounds and intense knockout stage, that could perhaps lead to changes in the future for the competition, which has always struggled with balancing fixture congestion for clubs.

Much of the 2020-21 season was also held behind closed doors with the competition starting late due to the delayed end to the 2020 campaign.  The lack of fans and compacted domestic and European schedules meant many of the top teams faltered.  Man City reached their first final, at last, in an all English affair against Chelsea, who were not expected to get that far.  City were favourites but the occasion got the better of them and it was Chelsea, with their new manager Thomas Tuchel who had only taken over in January, who took their second title.  PSG will be particularly annoyed given Tuchel failed to win it with them, including losing the 2020 final, but was able to get over the line with Chelsea at the first attempt.

City & Pep Finally Get Their European Cup

There was no real doubt that Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City were the best and most expensive team on the planet but many felt they would never be seen as one of the greatest until they won the famous ‘big ears’ trophy.  After losing to Chelsea in 2021, where many accused Pep of overthinking his tactics, it was thought City may end up being another PSG – an assembly of the worlds best players but incapable of winning the biggest prize in club football.  Those doubts were put to bed in 2023.

Man City beat Inter Milan 1-0 in what was a fairly boring game, although finals tend to be.  While they couldn’t match the magic of Liverpool in 2005 inside the Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul no one will really care as it means City are now off the mark and have joined the other five English teams to have won the European Cup.

Not only did they win the Champions League but they also won the league and FA Cup becoming only the second team, after their city rivals Man United, to win the treble.  Will this be City’s only European Cup?  That seems doubtful and having won one will they now go on to dominate the tournament?

2024 Knockout Stages

2024 Champions League Final

2024 Europa League Final

2024 Europa Conference League Final

Semi-Finals

Quarter-Finals

Last 16