UEFA has opened the way to the Champions League! Will Poland finally come?

On Tuesday (i.e. September 8), the games in the league phase of the Champions League officially began. Unfortunately, as in previous years, there is no Polish representative among UEFA’s most important club “product”. The Polish champion Lech Poznań and the runner-up Górnik Zabrze lost in the qualifying round.

UEFA opens the door to PKO BP Ekstraklasa? This could be a breakthrough!

The last time a Polish club advanced to the main part of the Champions League was in the 2016/17 season. It was Legia Warszawa, whose players made it through three rounds of qualifying to play in the European elite. So a decade has passed, which can easily be called a “decade of shame” for top league players. Poland has more and more opportunities every year, but it still cannot translate them into sports results. It is difficult to explain such a decline in the Champions League when, for example, representatives from Azerbaijan can play there – including Tymoteusz Puchacz.

The light at the end of the tunnel may be the UEFA ranking. The European football federation has just announced the structure of club competitions in the 2027/28 season. The Pole is then classified in 12th place. What does it do?

– Twelfth place opens up new perspectives for us. For the first time, we have a guarantee that two Polish teams will play in the league phase of European cups. This will facilitate planning, preparation and budgeting for clubs that will represent Poland in European cups. This will also make it easier to construct the league schedule, said Marcin Stefański, chief operating officer of Ekstraklasa SA, via the official website of the Polish competition.

The Polish champion will start the competition from the fourth round of Champions League qualifying, which means that he will have only one rival in the fight for promotion to the elite competition. The winner of the Polish Cup will start in the fourth round of qualifying for the Europa League. In addition, the runner-up, the third team and the fourth team in the top league table will start the competition from the second qualifying rounds of the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League, respectively.

Who knows, maybe thanks to the UEFA rankings, Polish clubs will find a way to get into the Champions League.

In the 2025/26 season, a small step in the right direction was made. While in the Conference League, in which Polish teams almost… specialized in accumulating points, now the bar has been set even higher. Ekstraklasa has two representatives in the Europa League – a direct base of the Champions League.

Jagiellonia Białystok and Lech Poznań will defend the honor of Polish football in European cups.