Does 5th Place in Premier League Qualify for Champions League if Man City Win?

Manchester City are eyeing their first European crown when they face Real Madrid in two blockbuster Champions League semi-final legs over the next nine days. The Premier League leaders know that victory over the 14-time European champions will put them on the brink of securing that elusive Champions League title, with the lesser-fancied AC Milan or Inter Milan awaiting the winning team in June’s final. This has led to fans of other English clubs asking one very simple question: Will fifth place in the Premier League ensure automatic qualification for next season’s Champions League? Unfortunately for the likes of Newcastle, Manchester United and Liverpool, the team finishing fifth in the Premier League will not qualify for the Champions League next season if Manchester City win the competition this year. This is because Pep Guardiola’s men are guaranteed to finish in the top four this season and so they have already qualified for the Champions League next year. If City do indeed go on to lift the trophy in June’s final in Istanbul, they will qualify for next season’s edition as reigning champions and their qualification spot secured through their league position would then not be passed down to the side ending up fifth in the Premier League. Instead, City’s league qualification would be transferred to the champions of the highest-ranked national league in the UEFA coefficient who don’t already occupy an automatic group stage qualifying spot. As things stand, the winners of the Ukrainian league would qualify for the Champions League automatically instead of having to go through the qualification stage. The club ending the season in fifth place will instead qualify automatically for the group stages of the Europa League. UEFA rules do actually allow five teams from the same country to play in the same Champions League season, but this could only have happened if an English club won the Champions League or Europa League this campaign but did not finish in the top four in the Premier League.