2024–25 European Rugby Champions Cup

Not to be confused with 2024–25 EPCR Challenge Cup.

2024–25 European Rugby Champions Cup
Tournament details
Countries	England France Ireland Italy Scotland South Africa
Tournament format(s)	Modified round-robin and knockout
Date	6 December 2024 – 24 May 2025
Tournament statistics
Matches played	12
Attendance	170,475 (14,206 per match)
Tries scored	83 (6.92 per match)
Final
Venue	Principality Stadium, Cardiff, Wales

The 2024–25 European Rugby Champions Cup (known as the 2024–25 Investec Champions Cup for sponsorship reasons) is the eleventh season of the European Rugby Champions Cup, the annual club rugby union competition run by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) for professional clubs. It is the 30th season of the pan-European professional club rugby competition and the second season in which Investec will be named title sponsors.

The final will be played at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales.

Teams

Twenty-four clubs from the three major European domestic and regional leagues will qualify to compete in the 2024–25 edition of the Champions Cup.

The distribution of teams is:

• England: eight clubs
  • The top eight clubs from the 2023–24 Premiership.
• France: eight clubs
  • The top eight clubs from the 2023–24 Top 14.
• Ireland, Italy, Scotland and South Africa: eight clubs
  • The top eight sides from the 2023–24 United Rugby Championship. As the winner of the 2023–24 Challenge Cup, the Sharks will displace the eighth-placed side in the URC.

Premiership	Top 14	United Rugby Championship
England	France	Ireland	Italy	Scotland	South Africa
Bath Bristol Bears Exeter Chiefs Harlequins Leicester Tigers Northampton Saints Sale Sharks Saracens	Bordeaux Castres Clermont La Rochelle Racing 92 Stade Français Toulon Toulouse	Leinster Munster Ulster	Benetton	Glasgow Warriors	Bulls Sharks Stormers

Team details

Below is the list of coaches, captain and stadiums with their method of qualification for each team.

Note: Placing shown in brackets, denotes standing at the end of the regular season for their respective leagues, with their end of season positioning shown through CH for Champions, RU for Runner-up, SF for losing Semi-finalist, and QF for losing Quarter-finalist.

Team	Coach(es)/ Director of Rugby	Captain(s)	Stadium	Capacity	Method of qualification
Bath	Johann van Graan	Ben Spencer	Recreation Ground	14,509	Premiership top 8 (2nd) (RU)
Benetton	Marco Bortolami	Michele Lamaro	Stadio Comunale di Monigo	5,000	URC top 8 (7th) (QF)
Bordeaux	Yannick Bru	Jefferson Poirot	Stade Chaban-Delmas	34,694	Top 14 top 8 (3rd) (RU)
Bristol Bears	Pat Lam	Fitz Harding	Ashton Gate	27,000	Premiership top 8 (5th)
Bulls	Jake White	Marcell Coetzee	Loftus Versfeld	51,762	URC top 8 (2nd) (RU)
Castres	Jeremy Davidson	Mathieu Babillot	Stade Pierre-Fabre	12,500	Top 14 top 8 (7th)
Clermont	Christophe Urios	Baptiste Jauneau	Stade Marcel-Michelin	19,022	Top 14 top 8 (8th)
Exeter Chiefs	Rob Baxter	Dafydd Jenkins	Sandy Park	13,593	Premiership top 8 (7th)
Glasgow Warriors	Franco Smith	Kyle Steyn	Scotstoun Stadium	7,351	URC top 8 (4th) (CH)
Harlequins	Billy Millard	Alex Dombrandt	Twickenham Stoop	14,800	Premiership top 8 (6th)
La Rochelle	Ronan O'Gara	Grégory Alldritt	Stade Marcel-Deflandre	16,700	Top 14 top 8 (5th) (SF)
Leicester Tigers	Michael Cheika	Julián Montoya	Mattioli Woods Welford Road	25,849	Premiership top 8 (8th)
Leinster	Leo Cullen	Caelan Doris	Aviva Stadium	51,700	URC top 8 (3rd) (SF)
Munster	Ian Costello	Tadhg Beirne	Thomond Park	25,600	URC top 8 (1st) (SF)
Northampton Saints	Phil Dowson	George Furbank	cinch stadium at Franklin's Gardens	15,200	Premiership top 8 (1st) (CH)
Racing 92	Stuart Lancaster	Henry Chavancy	Paris La Défense Arena	32,000	Top 14 top 8 (6th) (QF)
Sale Sharks	Alex Sanderson	Ben Curry	Salford Community Stadium	12,000	Premiership top 8 (3rd) (SF)
Saracens	Mark McCall	Maro Itoje	StoneX Stadium	10,500	Premiership top 8 (4th) (SF)
Sharks	John Plumtree	Lukhanyo Am	Hollywoodbets Kings Park	52,000	Challenge Cup Champions
Stade Français	Laurent Labit	Paul Gabrillagues	Stade Jean-Bouin	20,000	Top 14 top 8 (2nd) (SF)
Stormers	John Dobson	Salmaan Moerat	DHL Stadium	55,000	URC top 8 (5th) (QF)
Toulon	Pierre Mignoni	Charles Ollivon	Stade Mayol	17,500	Top 14 top 8 (4th) (QF)
Toulouse	Ugo Mola	Antoine Dupont	Stade Ernest-Wallon	19,500	Top 14 top 8 (1st) (CH)
Ulster	Richie Murphy	Iain Henderson	Kingspan Stadium	18,196	URC top 8 (6th) (QF)

Pool stage

[[File:

Bath

Bristol

Exeter

Leicester

Northampton

Sale

London
(see map below)

Clermont

Castres

Toulon

Stade Français

Racing 92

La Rochelle

Toulouse

Bordeaux

Leinster

Munster

Ulster

Glasgow

class=notpageimage|

Locations

|1300px|alt=Locations of British, Irish and French teams of the 2024–25 European Rugby Champions Cup group stage.
Red: Pool 1; Blue: Pool 2; Green: Pool 3; Purple: Pool 4.]]

[[:File:

Bath

Bristol

Exeter

Leicester

Northampton

Sale

London
(see map below)

Clermont

Castres

Toulon

Stade Français

Racing 92

La Rochelle

Toulouse

Bordeaux

Leinster

Munster

Ulster

Glasgow

class=notpageimage|

Locations

| ]]

Locations of British, Irish and French teams of the 2024–25 European Rugby Champions Cup group stage.
Red: Pool 1; Blue: Pool 2; Green: Pool 3; Purple: Pool 4.

Harlequins

Saracens

class=notpageimage|

Locations of London teams of the 2024–25 European Rugby Champions Cup group stage.
Green: Pool 3; Purple: Pool 4.

Benetton

class=notpageimage|

Locations of Italian teams of the 2024–25 European Rugby Champions Cup group stage.
Blue: Pool 2.

Bulls

Sharks

Stormers

class=notpageimage|

Locations of South African teams of the 2024–25 European Rugby Champions Cup group stage.
Red: Pool 1; Green: Pool 3; Purple: Pool 4.

Main article: 2024–25 European Rugby Champions Cup pool stage

Teams were drawn into pools on 2 July in Cardiff. Teams will be awarded four points for a win, two for a draw, one for scoring four tries in a game, and one for losing by less than eight points.

The format is, once again, a modified round robin. Each pool consists of six teams, two from each of the three contributing leagues. Each team plays the four teams not from its own league once, with one game away to each league and one game at home. Teams do not play their league partners at this stage. The top four teams go to the first knock out round, where the top two teams in each group are given home advantage. The fifth placed teams 'drop' into the Challenge Cup knockout rounds, joining twelve clubs from that competition's pool stages in the knockout stage as the ninth to twelfth seeds, earning away ties with the fifth-to eighth-ranked sides from the Challenge Cup's pool stage. The sixth placed team in each group is eliminated.

Pool 1

European Rugby Champions Cup Pool 1

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts	Qualification
1	Toulouse	1	1	0	0	61	21	+40	9	3	1	0	5	Home Champions Cup round of 16.
2	Sharks	1	1	0	0	39	21	+18	5	3	1	0	5
3	Bordeaux	1	1	0	0	42	28	+14	6	1	1	0	5	Away Champions Cup round of 16.
4	Leicester Tigers	1	0	0	1	28	42	−14	4	6	1	0	1
5	Exeter Chiefs	1	0	0	1	21	39	−18	3	5	0	0	0	Away Challenge Cup round of 16.
6	Ulster	1	0	0	1	21	61	−40	3	9	0	0	0

Source: EPCR
Rules for classification: Tiebreakers for teams tied on points: 1) Number of matches won; 2) Difference between points for and against; 3) Total number of points for; 4) Aggregate number of points scored in matches between tied teams; 5) Number of matches won excluding the first match, then the second and so on until the tie is settled.

Pool 2

European Rugby Champions Cup Pool 2

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts	Qualification
1	Clermont	1	1	0	0	28	0	+28	4	0	1	0	5	Home Champions Cup round of 16.
2	Leinster	1	1	0	0	35	12	+23	5	2	1	0	5
3	La Rochelle	1	1	0	0	24	20	+4	3	2	0	0	4	Away Champions Cup round of 16.
4	Bath	1	0	0	1	20	24	−4	2	3	0	1	1
5	Bristol Bears	1	0	0	1	12	35	−23	2	5	0	0	0	Away Challenge Cup round of 16.
6	Benetton	1	0	0	1	0	28	−28	0	4	0	0	0

Source: EPCR
Rules for classification: Tiebreakers for teams tied on points: 1) Number of matches won; 2) Difference between points for and against; 3) Total number of points for; 4) Aggregate number of points scored in matches between tied teams; 5) Number of matches won excluding the first match, then the second and so on until the tie is settled.

Pool 3

European Rugby Champions Cup Pool 3

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts	Qualification
1	Northampton Saints	1	1	0	0	38	8	+30	6	1	1	0	5	Home Champions Cup round of 16.
2	Munster	1	1	0	0	33	7	+26	5	1	1	0	5
3	Saracens	1	1	0	0	27	5	+22	4	1	1	0	5	Away Champions Cup round of 16.
4	Bulls	1	0	0	1	5	27	−22	1	4	0	0	0
5	Stade Français	1	0	0	1	7	33	−26	1	5	0	0	0	Away Challenge Cup round of 16.
6	Castres	1	0	0	1	8	38	−30	1	6	0	0	0

Source: EPCR
Rules for classification: Tiebreakers for teams tied on points: 1) Number of matches won; 2) Difference between points for and against; 3) Total number of points for; 4) Aggregate number of points scored in matches between tied teams; 5) Number of matches won excluding the first match, then the second and so on until the tie is settled.

Pool 4

European Rugby Champions Cup Pool 4

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts	Qualification
1	Glasgow Warriors	1	1	0	0	38	19	+19	6	3	1	0	5	Home Champions Cup round of 16.
2	Racing 92	1	1	0	0	23	12	+11	3	2	0	0	4
3	Toulon	1	1	0	0	24	14	+10	3	2	0	0	4	Away Champions Cup round of 16.
4	Stormers	1	0	0	1	14	24	−10	2	3	0	0	0
5	Harlequins	1	0	0	1	12	23	−11	2	3	0	0	0	Away Challenge Cup round of 16.
6	Sale Sharks	1	0	0	1	19	38	−19	3	6	0	0	0

Source: EPCR
Rules for classification: Tiebreakers for teams tied on points: 1) Number of matches won; 2) Difference between points for and against; 3) Total number of points for; 4) Aggregate number of points scored in matches between tied teams; 5) Number of matches won excluding the first match, then the second and so on until the tie is settled.