2016-17 UEFA Champions League

2016–17 UEFA Champions League

The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff will host the final
Tournament details
Dates	28 June – 24 August 2016 (qualifying) 13 September 2016 – 3 June 2017 (competition proper)
Teams	32 (group stage) 78 (total) (from 53 associations)
Tournament statistics
Matches played	96
Goals scored	278 (2.9 per match)
Attendance	3,857,659 (40,184 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Lionel Messi (10 goals)
← 2015–16 2017–18 → All statistics correct as of 7 December 2016.

The 2016–17 UEFA Champions League is the 62nd season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 25th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League.

The 2017 UEFA Champions League Final will be played at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales.

The winners of the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League will qualify as the UEFA representative at the 2017 FIFA Club World Cup in the United Arab Emirates, and also earn the right to play against the winners of the 2016–17 UEFA Europa League in the 2017 UEFA Super Cup.

Real Madrid are the defending champions.

A total of 78 teams from 53 of the 55 UEFA member associations are expected to participate in the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League (the exceptions being Liechtenstein, which does not organise a domestic league, and Kosovo, whose participation was not accepted in their first attempt as UEFA members). The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:

For the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2015 UEFA country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2010–11 to 2014–15.

Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations may have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below:

In the default access list, the Champions League title holders enter the group stage. However, since Real Madrid already qualified for the group stage (as the runners-up of the 2015–16 La Liga), the Champions League title holders berth in the group stage is given to the Europa League title holders, Sevilla.