UEFA make Champions League announcement impacting Chelsea and Tottenham

Just a few weeks after Real Madrid were confirmed the 2022 winners of the Champions League, UEFA have confirmed the dates for the 2022/23 competition.

Tottenham Hotspur have returned to the European top flight after a year out while Chelsea will look to progress further than their quarter finals stage of 2021/22.

Chelsea headed into the competition as defending champions but lost out to eventual winners Real Madrid in the final eight.

Real Madrid beat Liverpool who had been hoping to achieve the magical quadruple as they headed into the final weekend of the Premier League.

However, the end of their 2021/22 season saw them consoling themselves with just the Carabao Cup and FA Cup after missing out to Manchester City for the Premier League and to the La Liga giants Real Madrid in the Champions League final.

Vini Jr’s 59th minute goal sealed the deal and Real Madrid became Champions League winners for the 14th time in their history.

However, Vini Jr’s goal was far from the only drama the Stade de France saw that night with the French police firing tear gas into the crowds outside France’s main stadium.

France blamed 40,000 counterfeit tickets from Liverpool fans as the cause of the issues which saw around 20,000 Liverpool supporters waiting outside the gates for two to four hours creating a huge bottleneck.

Other reports suggest that only 3,000 counterfeit tickets were scanned and that insufficient preparation from the French police and governing bodies were the cause of the problems.

However, with another competition to look forward to, here are all the confirmed dates for the 2022/23 tournament.

When are the Champions League match days?

• Matchday 1: 6 September and 7 September 2022
• Matchday 2: 13 September and 14 September 2022
• Matchday 3: 4 October and 5 October 2022
• Matchday 4: 11 October and 12 October 2022
• Matchday 5: 25 October and 26 October 2022
• Matchday 6: 1 November and 2 November 2022

Knockout Phase dates

Round of 16

• 14 February 2023
• 15 February 2023
• 21 February 2023
• 22 February 2023
• 7 March 2023
• 8 March 2023
• 14 March 2023
• 15 March 2023

Quarter finals

• 11 April 2023
• 12 April 2023
• 18 April 2023
• 19 April 2023

Semi finals

• 9 May 2023
• 10 May 2023
• 16 May 2023
• 17 May 2023

When is the UEFA Champions League final 2023?

The 2022/23 tournament will conclude with the final on 10 June 2023. The final is set to take place at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey.

Who will join Chelsea and Spurs in Champions League 2022/23?

The draw for the preliminary round was conducted on Tuesday afternoon and will involve a mini-tournament in Iceland between the four lowest ranked teams to decide who will make the final cut for the 2022/23 tournament.

The matches are FCI Levadia vs Vikingur Reykjavik and La Fiorita vs Inter Club d’Escaldes and will take place on 21 June 2022.

These are the teams who will join Chelsea and Spurs in the group stages of the tournament:

• Real Madrid
• Eintracht Frankfurt
• Manchester City
• Liverpool
• Chelsea
• Tottenham Hotspur
• Barcelona
• Atletico Madrid
• Sevilla
• Milan
• Inter Milan
• Napoli
• Juventus
• Bayern Munich
• Borussia Dortmund
• Bayer Leverkusen
• RB Leipzig
• Paris Saint-Germain
• Marseille
• Porto
• Sporting CP
• Ajax
• Club Brugge
• Red Bull Salzburg
• Celtic
• Shakhtar Dontetsk