How Many Points Do You Need to Qualify from the Conference League League Phase?

The top-eight and top-24 lines, season by season

Each club plays six matches, so 18 points is the maximum. Positions 1 to 8 go straight to the round of 16, 9 to 24 play a two-legged knockout play-off, and 25 to 36 are out of Europe for the season.

GD = goal difference across the six league phase matches. Source: UEFA final Conference League league phase tables, 2024/25 and 2025/26.

The Conference League line is low because the schedule is short, not because the competition is soft. Six games against eight in the other two competitions take a quarter of the points off the table: the average club finished on 8.4 points in 2024/25 and 8.3 in 2025/26. Draws pull the totals closer together still. There were 22 draws in 108 matches in the first season and 25 in the second, and there have been 15 in the 54 matches played so far in 2026/27, which is why eleven clubs finished level on seven points across the two seasons, right on the top-24 line.

The 2024/25 line also carries a story for Irish readers. Shamrock Rovers finished tenth on 11 points, level with the eighth-placed club and missing a direct place in the round of 16 on goal difference (+3 against Cercle Brugge's +7). For Scottish readers, Hearts went out in 25th the same season on 7 points, with the same goal difference as TSC in 24th and four fewer goals scored.

The practical reading: 12 has been safe for the top eight, 8 has been safe for the top 24, and the total one point below each has been decided by goal difference or goals scored. The full order of criteria is the same as in our Champions League league-phase tiebreakers guide: the Conference League regulations use the same ten criteria in the same order.

What three matchdays told us, in both seasons

We rebuilt both seasons match by match from UEFA's results and checked the totals against the final tables: 36 clubs out of 36 matched in each season. This is every club's points after matchday 3, the halfway point, against where it finished. Seventy-two club-seasons in all.

2024/25 and 2025/26 combined. Our calculation from UEFA match results. Totals with no club (8 points after matchday 3, for example) are left out. A row of four or five clubs is an anecdote, not a rate.

The clearest line sits at seven points. All 14 clubs with seven or more after three matches survived the league phase, and eight of them finished in the top eight. Six was the first total with a casualty: of ten clubs, three reached the top eight and one, Hearts in 2024/25, was eliminated. Four points was still a live position, with four of thirteen clubs finishing in the top eight.

Below that the picture turns quickly. No club on three points or fewer at halfway reached the top eight (31 clubs), and 21 of those 31 were eliminated. Half of the fourteen clubs on exactly three went out. With only nine points left to play for, a bad first half leaves very little room: a club on one point needs two wins and a draw to reach the 8 that has always been enough.

The remaining dates

Add an hour for Malta and the rest of central Europe. A 20:00 kick-off is 15:00 in Toronto and 09:00 the following morning in New Zealand. Matchday 6 puts all eighteen matches on at once, so every position in the table is live at the same time and settled together. UEFA lists the final for 2 June 2027.

Reading a position market with these numbers

Three markets read this one table: to finish in the top eight, to finish in the top 24 (to reach the knockout phase), and to be eliminated in the league phase. None of them has a single winner. Eight clubs finish in the top eight, so a fair book on that market adds up to 800%, not 100%, and a fair book on the top 24 adds up to 2,400%. The margin is the amount by which the total exceeds 800% or 2,400%. Our margin calculator works for a single-winner book, so for these markets divide its total by the number of places first.

For a single club, turn the price into a percentage with the odds converter and set it beside two things: the points the club still needs from the table above, and the record of clubs that stood where it stands now. A price that implies 90% for a club on three points to reach the knockout phase is assuming far more than the last two seasons delivered (7 of 14). That does not make the price wrong; the opponents left on the schedule matter, and two seasons are a small sample. It does tell you what the price is assuming.

Finishing ninth to sixteenth has a value of its own that no position market prices directly. Under Article 19 of the regulations, clubs in those places are seeded in the knockout play-off draw, face a club from 17th to 24th and in principle play the second leg at home.

Settlement is on the final ranking after matchday 6. Because the last tie-break criterion is the club coefficient, the ranking never ends level, so a dead heat on a finishing position does not arise. A bet on a club to reach the round of 16 is different from a bet on a top-eight finish: a club ranked 9th to 24th can still get there through the play-off, the way a to-qualify bet would count it.

The same thresholds for the two bigger competitions, each with its own current table, are in Champions League points to qualify and Europa League points to qualify. If you combine a position bet with other selections, the compounding is set out in accumulator betting explained.