REIGNING NIFL Women’s Premiership champions Cliftonville Ladies will travel to face Kosovan opposition in the first stage of qualifying for the 2025-26 edition of the UEFA Women’s Champions League.
The Reds were paired with KFF Mitrovica in Group 6 of the semi-finals in the UWCL first qualifying round (Champions Path). The game will be played on July 30.
The winners of that semi-final will then face Georgian side WFC Lanchkhuti in the R1 Group 6 final in the new-look competition. The Georgians received a bye to the final on August 3 in Tuesday’s draw staged at UEFA HQ in Switzerland.
The winners of Cliftonville’s group – and the five other groups – will advance to a Champions Path second qualifying round. And the draw for that was also made on Tuesday.
The winners of Group 6 in R1 will face Ukrainian side FC Vorskla Poltava on August 27 in the R2 Group 5 semi-finals, with the winners facing either FC Gintra of Lithuania or Romanian outfit FCV Farul Constanta in the G5 final on August 30.
Hosts are still to be confirmed for all mini tournaments in both rounds.
The seven group winners in R2 progress to a third qualifying round. Runners-up transfer to the second qualifying round of the new UEFA Women’s Europa Cup, while third-place finishers transfer to the UEFA Women’s Europa Cup first qualifying round.
The third qualifying round in the UWCL will be staged in September. It will feature seven mini tournament winners from the R2 Champions Path and four winners emerging from a two-stage League Path that features teams who finished as runners-up in European leagues ranked six to 17 or third in leagues ranked four to seven.
At the R3 qualifying stage three runners-up from European leagues ranked three to five and third-placed teams from the top three leagues will enter the fray.
The 18-team league phase of the new-look UEFA Women’s Champions League is due to begin in October.
The league phase will feature four teams from the Champions Path, five from the League Path, the Champions League holders (Arsenal), six champions from Europe’s strongest leagues and two runners-up from Europe’s strongest leagues based on the UEFA co-efficient (France and Germany).
The draw for Women’s Champions League R3 qualifying will be made at UEFA HQ at the end of August.
