According to the latest co-efficient rankings released, the Dutch Eredivisie will lose its automatic Champions League group stage qualifying spot in the 2018/19 season. The Netherlands have slipped out of the top 12 (they’re now in 13th spot), and this means their 2017/18 champions will have to play the qualifying stages of the Champions League.
There will also be four guaranteed spaces to each of the top four associations (that’s sixteen clubs guaranteed a group stage Champions League ticket). For example, the fourth place Premiership team originally had to play a qualifying round tie, but will now qualify automatically. The earlier system had a guaranteed group stage spot for nations 1-12 in the co-efficient ranking table, but with these extra spots, only nations 1-10 will be guaranteed a spot. The Netherlands are currently in 13th. Their current European representatives are Ajax and AZ, who drew 0-0 against Legia and lost 4-1 to Lyon respectively in their EL ties on Thursday.
Check out the current ranking tables below as per the co-efficient system.
