2023–24 European Rugby Champions Cup
Tournament details
Countries	England  France  Ireland  Scotland  South Africa  Wales
Tournament format(s)	Modified round-robin and knockout
Date	8 December 2023 – 25 May 2024
Tournament statistics
Matches played	33
Attendance	490,783 (14,872 per match)
Highest attendance	42,003 – Leinster v Stade Français 13 January 2023
Lowest attendance	6,024 – Connacht v Bordeaux 8 December 2023
Tries scored	233 (7.06 per match)
Final
Venue	Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London

The 2023–24 European Rugby Champions Cup is the tenth season of the European Rugby Champions Cup, the annual club rugby union competition run by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) for teams from the top five nations in European rugby and South Africa. It is the 29th season of pan-European professional club rugby competition.

This is the second time the tournament features the top teams from South Africa, following the second United Rugby Championship season.

The final will be played at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, England, United Kingdom.^[1] La Rochelle are the defending champions, having won their second European Cup title in the previous edition.^[1]

Teams

Twenty-four clubs from the three major European domestic and regional leagues qualified to compete in the 2023–24 edition of the Champions Cup.

The distribution of teams is:

• England: eight clubs
  • The top eight clubs from Premiership Rugby^{[lower-alpha 1]}
• France: eight clubs
  • The top eight clubs from the Top 14
• Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, Wales: eight clubs
  • The top side in each of the four regional shields from the United Rugby Championship (one Irish, one Welsh, one South African and one either Scottish or Italian), along with the remaining top four ranked clubs regardless of nation, within the league, that didn't win their respective shield. If the club that wins the championship has not qualified by the methods above then that club, the four shield winners and the remaining top three ranked clubs regardless of nation, within the league, that didn't win their respective shield will qualify.

Premiership	Top 14	United Rugby Championship
England	France	Ireland	South Africa	Scotland	Wales
Bath Bristol Bears[lower-alpha 1] Exeter Chiefs Harlequins Leicester Tigers Northampton Saints Sale Sharks Saracens	Bayonne Bordeaux-Bègles La Rochelle Lyon Racing 92 Stade Français Toulon Toulouse	Connacht Leinster Munster Ulster	Bulls Stormers	Glasgow Warriors	Cardiff

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	Stadium	Capacity	Method of qualification
Bayonne	Grégory Patat	Denis Marchois	Stade Jean-Dauger	14,370	Top 14 top 8 (8th)
Bath	Johann van Graan	Ben Spencer	The Recreation Ground	14,509	Premiership top 8 (8th)
Bordeaux Bègles	Yannick Bru	Mahamadou Diaby	Stade Chaban-Delmas	34,694	Top 14 top 8 (6th) (SF)
Bristol Bears	Pat Lam	Steve Luatua	Ashton Gate	27,000	Premiership top 8 (9th)[lower-alpha 1]
Bulls	Jake White	Marcell Coetzee	Loftus Versfeld Stadium	51,762	URC table rankings (6th) (QF)
Cardiff	Matt Sherratt	Josh Turnbull	Cardiff Arms Park	12,125	URC Welsh Shield winner (10th)
Connacht	Peter Wilkins	Jack Carty	Galway Sportsgrounds	8,129	URC table rankings (7th) (SF)
Exeter Chiefs	Rob Baxter	Jack Yeandle	Sandy Park	13,593	Premiership top 8 (7th)
Glasgow Warriors	Franco Smith	Kyle Steyn	Scotstoun Stadium	7,351	URC Scottish/Italian Shield winner (4th) (QF)
Harlequins	Tabai Matson	Stephan Lewies	Twickenham Stoop	14,800	Premiership top 8 (6th)
La Rochelle	Ronan O'Gara	Grégory Alldritt	Stade Marcel-Deflandre	16,700	Top 14 top 8 (2nd) (RU)
Leicester Tigers	Dan McKellar	Julián Montoya	Mattioli Woods Welford Road	25,849	Premiership top 8 (3rd) (SF)
Leinster	Leo Cullen	James Ryan Garry Ringrose	RDS Arena Aviva Stadium	18,500 51,700	URC Irish Shield winner (1st) (SF)
Lyon	Fabien Gengenbacher	Baptiste Couilloud	Matmut Stadium de Gerland	35,029	Top 14 top 8 (3rd) (QF)
Munster	Graham Rowntree	Peter O'Mahony	Thomond Park	25,600	URC table rankings (5th) (CH)
Northampton Saints	Phil Dowson	Lewis Ludlam	cinch Stadium at Franklin's Gardens	15,200	Premiership top 8 (4th) (SF)
Racing 92	Stuart Lancaster	Henry Chavancy	Paris La Défense Arena	32,000	Top 14 top 8 (5th) (SF)
Sale Sharks	Alex Sanderson	Ben Curry	AJ Bell Stadium	12,000	Premiership top 8 (2nd) (RU)
Saracens	Mark McCall	Owen Farrell	StoneX Stadium	10,500	Premiership top 8 (1st) (CH)
Stade Français	Laurent Labit Karim Ghezal	Paul Gabrillagues	Stade Jean-Bouin	20,000	Top 14 top 8 (4th) (QF)
Stormers	John Dobson	Salmaan Moerat	Cape Town Stadium	55,000	URC South African Shield winner (3rd) (RU)
Toulon	Pierre Mignoni	Charles Ollivon	Stade Mayol	17,500	Top 14 top 8 (7th)
Toulouse	Ugo Mola	Antoine Dupont Julien Marchand	Stade Ernest-Wallon	19,500	Top 14 top 8 (1st) (CH)
Ulster	Dan McFarland	Iain Henderson	Ravenhill Stadium	18,196	URC table rankings (2th) (QF)

Notes

1. 1 2 3 London Irish originally qualified as one of the top 8 Premiership teams, after finishing 5th in the 2022–23 season. However, the club was officially suspended from all professional competitions on 6 June 2023, due to financial insolvency.^[2] As a consequence, their spot in the Champions Cup was awarded to Bristol Bears, the highest ranked team outside the top 8.^[3]

Pool stage

[[File:

Bath

Bristol

Exeter

Leicester

Northampton

Sale

London
(see map below)

Toulon

Stade Français

Bayonne

Racing 92

La Rochelle

Toulouse

Bordeaux

Lyon

Connacht

Leinster

Munster

Ulster

Glasgow

Cardiff

Locations

|1300px|alt=Locations of European teams of the 2023–24 European Rugby Champions Cup group stage.
Red: Pool A; Blue: Pool B; Green: Pool C; Purple: Pool D.]]

Locations of European teams of the 2023–24 European Rugby Champions Cup group stage.
Red: Pool A; Blue: Pool B; Green: Pool C; Purple: Pool D.

Harlequins

Saracens

Locations of London teams of the 2023–24 European Rugby Champions Cup group stage.
Red: Pool A; Blue: Pool B.

Bulls

Stormers

Locations of South African teams of the 2023–24 European Rugby Champions Cup group stage.
Red: Pool A; Purple: Pool D.

Teams are awarded four points for a win, two for a draw, one bonus point for scoring four tries in a game, and one bonus point for losing by less than eight points.

The draw for the pool stage took place on 21 June 2023.^[4] Unlike the previous season, the format consisted of four pools with six teams in each. The rules of the draw stipulated that the 2022–23 champions of the three European domestic leagues (Saracens, Toulouse and Munster) and the 2022–23 Champions Cup winners (La Rochelle) would each be drawn into separate pools. The remaining 20 teams were then drawn at random, with the only condition being that no more than two teams from the same domestic league could be placed into each pool.

Pool A

2023–24 European Rugby Champions Cup Pool A
Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	Diff	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts
Lyon (q)	3	2	0	1	97	84	+13	15	11	3	1	12
Bordeaux	2	2	0	0	77	22	+55	11	3	2	0	10
Bulls	3	2	0	1	86	62	+24	10	10	1	1	10
Saracens	2	1	0	1	71	63	+8	10	8	1	0	5
Bristol Bears	3	1	0	2	70	101	–31	10	15	1	0	5
Connacht	3	0	0	3	61	130	–69	9	18	1	0	1
Green background (rows 1 to 4) indicates qualification places for the Champions Cup round of 16. Blue background (row 5) indicates qualification place for the Challenge Cup round of 16. Plain background (row 6) indicates elimination from 2023–24 European competition. (q) indicates teams qualified for the next round of Champions Cup rugby but not confirmed seeding. Starting table — source: European Professional Club Rugby

Pool B

2023–24 European Rugby Champions Cup Pool B
Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	Diff	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts
Toulouse (q)	3	3	0	0	147	50	+97	21	7	3	0	15
Bath	2	2	0	0	76	46	+30	11	6	2	0	10
Harlequins	3	2	0	1	104	90	+14	15	13	2	0	10
Ulster	3	1	0	2	69	100	–31	9	15	1	0	5
Racing 92	2	0	0	2	43	62	–19	7	8	1	1	2
Cardiff	3	0	0	3	54	145	–91	7	21	1	1	2
Green background (rows 1 to 4) indicates qualification places for the Champions Cup round of 16. Blue background (row 5) indicates qualification place for the Challenge Cup round of 16. Plain background (row 6) indicates elimination from 2023–24 European competition. (q) indicates teams qualified for the next round of Champions Cup rugby but not confirmed seeding. Starting table — source: European Professional Club Rugby

Pool C

2023–24 European Rugby Champions Cup Pool C
Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	Diff	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts
Northampton Saints (q)	3	3	0	0	111	52	+59	16	7	2	0	14
Exeter Chiefs (q)	3	3	0	0	70	59	+11	10	8	1	0	13
Munster	3	1	1	1	70	67	+3	10	8	2	0	8
Glasgow Warriors	3	1	0	2	48	58	–10	7	7	0	1	5
Bayonne	3	0	1	2	42	90	–48	5	13	0	1	3
Toulon	3	0	0	3	55	70	–15	6	11	0	2	2
Green background (rows 1 to 4) indicates qualification places for the Champions Cup round of 16. Blue background (row 5) indicates qualification place for the Challenge Cup round of 16. Plain background (row 6) indicates elimination from 2023–24 European competition. (q) indicates teams qualified for the next round of Champions Cup rugby but not confirmed seeding. Starting table — source: European Professional Club Rugby

Pool D

2023–24 European Rugby Champions Cup Pool D
Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	Diff	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts
Leinster (q)	3	3	0	0	96	43	+53	13	4	2	0	14
Leicester Tigers	2	2	0	0	62	50	+12	7	5	1	0	9
Stormers	3	2	0	1	78	79	–1	8	9	1	0	9
Sale Sharks	3	1	0	2	79	73	+6	9	10	0	1	5
La Rochelle	2	0	0	2	29	37	–8	2	3	0	2	2
Stade Français	3	0	0	3	36	98	–62	5	13	0	1	1
Green background (rows 1 to 4) indicates qualification places for the Champions Cup round of 16. Blue background (row 5) indicates qualification place for the Challenge Cup round of 16. Plain background (row 6) indicates elimination from 2023–24 European competition. (q) indicates teams qualified for the next round of Champions Cup rugby but not confirmed seeding. Starting table — source: European Professional Club Rugby

Knockout stage

The knockout stage will begin with the round of 16, starting on 5 April 2024, and concludes with the final on 25 May 2024.

Like in 2022/23 the round of 16 will consist of a single leg of match, consisting of the top four ranked teams from each Pool respectively. All clubs will thereafter be ranked in descending order based firstly on their ranking in their pool and subsequently on the number of match points they have accumulated, to create an overall ranking from 1 to 16. The pool winners will be ranked 1 to 4, the second-placed clubs will be ranked 5 to 8, the third-placed clubs will be ranked 9 to 12, and the fourth-placed clubs will be ranked 13 to 16.

Whilst the round of 16 follows a pre-determined format, the quarter-finals will see home advantage given to the higher ranked team based on a pre-deterred match-up. The semi-finals are to be played at a neutral venue, with the higher ranked team reaching home country advantage.

Seeding

Rank	Team	Pts	Diff	TF
Pool leaders
1	Toulouse	15	+97	21
2	Northampton Saints	14	+59	16
3	Leinster	14	+53	13
4	Lyon	12	+13	15
Pool runners-up
5	Exeter Chiefs	13	+11	10
6	Bordeaux Bègles	10	+55	11
7	Bath	10	+30	11
8	Leicester Tigers	9	+12	7
Pool third place
9	Bulls	10	+24	10
10	Harlequins	10	+14	15
10	Stormers	9	–1	8
11	Munster	8	+3	10
Pool fourth place
13	Saracens	5	+8	10
14	Sale Sharks	5	+6	9
15	Glasgow Warriors	5	–10	7
16	Ulster	5	–7	6

See also

• 2023–24 EPCR Challenge Cup

References