The curious Premier League race to qualify - or not - for Europe

Paul Macdonald

• 19 Mar 2026 02:30 CDT
• 5 min read

Analysis

It’s way more difficult to work out who will qualify for European football than it might first appear.

For years, the conversation has circled around the top four and it’s because it’s so cut-and-dried; it allows entry into the Champions League and all other qualification rules are moot. If you’re top four, you’re in. Simple, easy, and allowed Sky Sports to over-amplify its relevance.

But the new European format introduced in 2024 muddied the water somewhat.

Two additional positions in the CL are offered to the two nations with the best performing coefficients, and this year English teams are almost guaranteed one of those spots - it’s virtually impossible for them to not achieve this going forward, given the strength of their teams.

Which means it’s not really a top four and more of a top five.

Traditionally, fifth + winning the FA Cup guaranteed Europa League football. In England, the League Cup is the entry into the Europa Conference League. But here’s where it gets tricky.

The top five in the Premier League will go into the Champions League. Therefore sixth, plus the FA Cup winners, will compete in Europe. But three of the current top five (Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal) are in the quarter-finals with one guaranteed a semi-final slot. Should one of these sides win the FA Cup, that would mean sixth and seventh in the Premier League would go into the Europa League. Still with us? Good.

The League Cup final is between Man City and Arsenal, who are effectively guaranteed top finish in the top five. Therefore, the Europa Conference place on offer defaults back to the league, which, in this scenario, would be eighth.

So to summarise, we’re looking at a scenario where either seventh or eighth in the PL would receive a Europa Conference League place.

Great, why does it matter?

A good question, one I’m building to. We’ve gone into detail here about why qualifying for the Conference League leads to a budget headache for PL teams.

In order to compete in Europe they’ll have to comply with Uefa’s version of Squad Cost Control, which decrees that a maximum of 70% of your revenue can be spent on wages, transfer fees, agent fees and other items. But the Premier League limit from next year is more relaxed - set at 85%. So, by qualifying for Europe you are giving yourself more games but less budget to work with.

Normally reaching Europe brings with it additional revenue that offsets any such concerns; the Champions League certainly does and going deep enough in Europa League does (just). But the Conference League simply isn’t meant for PL teams. The potential revenue it could generate maxes out at c. £15m, nowhere near enough to offset having to cut wage budgets. If your wage bill is £200m and is compliant with PL rules, it means taking a £30m cut in that cost for the pleasure of travelling to some of the smallest venues across Europe. It is, in effect, a total and utter headache.

So as far as we see it, the clubs have two options.

1. Accept some form of UEFA punishment, or

2. Try to avoid qualifying for it

Let’s look at 1. first of all. It all depends on your appetite for getting on the wrong side of Uefa and you can expect a big wrap on the knuckles.

Chelsea, for example, have a £27m fine for breaches hanging over them, while Aston Villa’s lesser breaches still earned them a £9.5m with an additional £12.5m suspended based on compliance. The fines aren’t tiny but the settlement agreements tend to bite if sports performance drops as future spending is restricted. As Villa have found out, this can make your situation worse quite quickly. So what of 2?

Well, to be cynical, the Premier League dreams of mimicking the NFL in a number of ways and that league is no stranger to teams tanking towards the end of a season in order to enjoy a superior draft pick.

This wouldn’t be tanking, by any stretch, but let’s take the cases of Brentford and Everton as examples.

We’re looking at a situation where either seventh, or eighth, is Conference League territory. Brentford, with a game in hand, can still legitimately dream of the Champions League and are therefore incentivised to keep winning. You could make the same case about Everton and (at a push Newcastle). But beyond that your success is dicing with financial headaches you just don’t need.

To avoid this leaving this to chance, it’ll be in the head of all eight of the teams in that graphic. Palace’s season has been derailed by it and that’s without the financial rule changes.

The three main protagonists will likely be dancing close to the 70% Squad Cost Ratio thresholds in 2025/26 season. Newcastle are likely just inside (due to their run in the Champions League), Brentford may be just above (helped by big sales of Mbeumo and, ironically, Wissa’s sale to Newcastle) and Everton will almost certainly by above the threshold. Budgets of all these clubs will therefore be inhibited if they don’t qualify for the Champions League. This is especially true of Brentford and Everton if they have Europa League qualification bonuses in their contracts.

Do you really want to sacrifice a % of salary room to head to Belarus, Georgia or Macedonia on a Thursday night? And the additional fatigue that will be accumulated with a theoretically smaller squad?

So yes, welcome to the prospect of European tanking. It probably won’t immediately be noticeable, and it certainly will only arrive in the last few weeks of the season, but it’s something that the system has created, and it’s not a good look for anyone involved.

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