Alongside club football, international football will have a big say in the 2024/25 season with as many as six major competitions lined up. The summer of 2024 itself will have two big continental contests, the European Championship and the Copa America, alongside the Olympics. Next year will see the Africa Cup of Nations held at the end of the club season moving away from January and the Women’s Euro 2025 in July. Hence, the football calendar is jam-packed in the 2024/25 season and the intensity levels will be higher than ever.
UEFA Euro 2024 (14 June – 14 July 2024)
The 17th edition of the Euro Championship will be hosted in Germany from June 14 with the final at Olympiastadion in Berlin just a month later. This is the third time the Euros will be played on German soil although four matches were played in Munich in the multiple nations Euro 2020 edition. 24 teams will take part with Georgia being the sole nation to make their debut in the competition or a major international tournament. Italy are the defending champions.
2024 Copa América (20 June – 14 July 2024)
The 2024 Copa America will be a pan-American competition with top nations from North and South America playing together, just like in the centenary year of the competition. 10 teams from CONMEBOL and six from CONCACAF will make the 16 teams for the contest. This will be the 48th edition of the Copa America and is set to be hosted by the USA. The tournament will run from 20th June to 14th July 2024. World champions Argentina are also defending this trophy having won the last edition in 2021.
Football at Olympics 2024 (24 July – 9 August 2024)
The football tournament at the 2024 Summer Olympics will be held from 24 July to 10 August 2024 in France. The 28th edition of the Men’s tournament with 14 teams will start on 24 July and the final on 9 August. Brazil were the two-time men's defending champions but failed to qualify. The Women’s tournament is from 25 July to 10 August 2024 with this being its eighth edition. Canada won the Gold for the first time three years ago. Both finals will be played at the Parc des Princes in Paris.
UEFA Nations League (5 September 2024 - 5 June 2025)
The fourth edition of the UEFA Nations League will see a modified format. Instead of only the winners of all four groups of League A advancing to the knockout stage, the runners-up will join them for a quarterfinal stage of eight teams. The matches will be played in a home-and-away format. The group winners will face runners-up of a different group with the advantage of playing at home in the second leg. The four quarter finalists will then advance to the Nations League Finals where the competition will maintain its existing format. The League Phase will start on 5 September 2024 with the final of the 2024/25 Nations League on June 5, 2025.
UEFA Qualifiers for FIFA World Cup 2026 (21 March 2025 - 18 November 2025)
The European qualifiers for the 48-team FIFA World Cup 2026 hosted by the USA will be the first major tournament to look at in 2025. UEFA has undertaken a revised format for the expanded World Cup with the tournament slots increasing from 13 to 16. The qualifiers will feature 12 groups of four or five teams playing home and away. The winners will advance directly. The second-placed teams and the four best-ranked group winners from the 2024–25 UEFA Nations League will enter the playoffs to decide the remaining teams going to the World Cup. The entire qualifying schedule will be done within a year with the Nations League knockouts occurring concurrently.
Finalissima 2025
The winners of the UEFA Euro 2024 and 2024 Copa América will play against each other in a single-leg final known as the Finalissima in 2025. Argentina, Copa America defenders, won the last edition by beating Euro holders Italy 3-0 in 2022. The tournament is a revival of the Artemio Franchi Cup and is organised jointly by UEFA and CONMEBOL.
