2022–23 UEFA Europa League

The 2022–23 UEFA Europa League was the 52nd season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 14th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League.

Sevilla defeated Roma in the final played at the Puskás Aréna in Budapest, Hungary, 4–1 on penalties following a 1–1 draw after extra time, winning the competition for a record-extending seventh time. Budapest was originally scheduled to host the final match for the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League, but several hosts were shifted because of the delay and ultimate relocation of the 2020 final due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As winners of the tournament, Sevilla automatically qualified for the 2023–24 UEFA Champions League group stage and also earned the right to play against the winners of the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League, Manchester City, in the 2023 UEFA Super Cup.

As the title holders, Eintracht Frankfurt qualified for the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League. They were unable to defend their title after advancing to the knockout phase, and were eliminated by Napoli in the first knockout round.

Association team allocation
A total of 57 teams from 33 of the 55 UEFA member associations participated in the 2022–23 UEFA Europa League. Among them, 15 associations had teams directly qualifying for the Europa League, while for the other 40 associations that did not have any teams directly qualifying, 18 of them had teams playing after being transferred from the Champions League (the only member associations which could not have a participant were Russia and Liechtenstein, which did not organise a domestic league, and could only enter their cup winner into the UEFA Europa Conference League given their association ranking). The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:
 * The title holders of the UEFA Europa Conference League were given an entry in the Europa League (as they did not qualify for the Champions League group stage).
 * Associations 1–5 each had two teams qualify.
 * Associations 6–7 and 9–15 each had one team qualify.
 * 36 teams eliminated from the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League were transferred to the Europa League.

Association ranking
For the 2022–23 UEFA Europa League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2021 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2016–17 to 2020–21.

Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations may have had additional teams participating in the Europa League, as noted below:
 * (UCL) – Additional teams transferred from the UEFA Champions League
 * (UECL) – Additional berth for UEFA Europa Conference League title holders

Distribution
The following is the access list for this season.

Due to the suspension of Russia for the 2022–23 European season, the following changes to the access list were made:


 * The cup winners of associations 13 (Turkey) and 14 (Denmark) enter the play-off round instead of the third qualifying round.
 * The cup winners of association 16 (Serbia) enter the third qualifying round instead of the Europa Conference League second qualifying round.

Since the Europa Conference League title holders (Roma) qualified through their league position, the following changes to the access list were made:


 * The cup winners of association 7 (Netherlands) enter the group stage instead of the play-off round.
 * The cup winners of association 15 (Cyprus) enter the play-off round instead of the third qualifying round.
 * The cup winners of association 17 (Czech Republic) enter the third qualifying round instead of the Europa Conference League second qualifying round.

Redistribution rules
A Europa League place was vacated when a team qualified for both the Champions League and the Europa League, or qualified for the Europa League by more than one method. When a place was vacated, it was redistributed within the national association by the following rules:
 * When the domestic cup winners (considered as the "highest-placed" qualifier within the national association with the latest starting round) also qualified for the Champions League, their Europa League place was vacated. As a result, the highest-placed team in the league which had not yet qualified for European competitions qualified for the Europa League, with the Europa League qualifiers which finished above them in the league moved up one "place".
 * When the domestic cup winners also qualified for the Europa League through league position, their place through the league position was vacated. As a result, the highest-placed team in the league which had not yet qualified for European competitions qualified for the Europa League, with the Europa League qualifiers which finished above them in the league moved up one "place" if possible.
 * For associations where a Europa League place was reserved for either the League Cup or end-of-season European competition play-offs winners, they always qualified for the Europa League as the "lowest-placed" qualifier. If the League Cup winners had already qualified for European competitions through other methods, this reserved Europa League place was taken by the highest-placed team in the league which had not yet qualified for European competitions.

Teams
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
 * ECL: Europa Conference League title holders
 * CW: Cup winners
 * 4th, 5th, etc.: League position of the previous season
 * Abd-: League positions of abandoned season as determined by the national association; all teams were subject to approval by UEFA
 * UCL: Transferred from the Champions League
 * GS: Third-placed teams from the group stage
 * CH/LP PO: Losers from the play-off round (Champions/League Path)
 * CH/LP Q3: Losers from the third qualifying round (Champions/League Path)
 * CH/LP Q2: Losers from the second qualifying round (Champions/League Path)

The third qualifying round was divided into Champions Path (CH) and Main Path (MP).

CC: 2022 UEFA club coefficients.

Notes

Schedule
The schedule of the competition was as follows. Matches were scheduled for Thursdays apart from the final, which took place on a Wednesday, though exceptionally could take place on Tuesdays or Wednesdays due to scheduling conflicts. Scheduled kick-off times starting from the group stage were 18:45 and 21:00 CEST/CET, though exceptionally could take place at 16:30 due to geographical reasons.

As the 2022 FIFA World Cup took place in Qatar between 20 November and 18 December 2022, the group stage commenced in the first week of September 2022 and concluded in the first week of November 2022 to make way for the World Cup.

The draws for the qualifying round were held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. The group stage draw took place in Istanbul, Turkey.

Group stage
The draw for the group stage was held on 26 August 2022. The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots, each of eight teams, based on their 2022 UEFA club coefficients (CC). Teams from the same association could not be drawn into the same group.

Bodø/Glimt, Nantes, Union Berlin and Union Saint-Gilloise made their debut appearances in the group stage. Union Saint-Gilloise made their debut appearance in a UEFA competition group stage.

A total of 23 national associations were represented in the group stage.

Knockout phase
In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.

Statistics
Statistics exclude qualifying round and play-off round.

Team of the season
The UEFA technical study group selected the following players as the team of the tournament.

Player of the Season

 * 🇪🇸 Jesús Navas ( Sevilla)

Young Player of the Season

 * 🇩🇪 Florian Wirtz ( Bayer Leverkusen)