The UEFA Cup is to be reformed next year to include a group phase, European football's governing body announced today.
The new format, which will come into effect for the 2004-05 season, will see a group stage before the competition becomes a straight knock-out.
The competition will begin with 16 clubs eliminated from the qualifying tournament for the Champions League joining 64 UEFA Cup qualifiers to make 80 teams meeting in a first round of 40 two-legged matches.
The 40 winners then go into the new group stage to run from late October, through November, with eight groups of five clubs from which the top three in each advance to be joined by a further eight clubs, also eliminated after the group phase of the Champions League, in the traditional knockout tournament.
In the new mini-league stage, however, UEFA has introduced a fresh and unexpected ingredient: teams will only play each other once, not twice, and so they will play twice at home and twice away, the groups and fixtures to be decided by the UEFA seedings system.