The EHF Champions League Women gets the top-flight season underway with the opening matches on September 7 and 8. The honour of opening the 2024/25 season goes to FTC-Rail Cargo Hungaria, Nykøbing Falster Håndbold, CS Gloria 2018 BN and CSM Bucuresti. FTC will host Nykøbing and CS Gloria will welcome Bucharest in the very first games at 16:00 CEST on Saturday September 7. A total of five matches will take place on the first day of competition, with title holders Györi Audi ETO KC also starring on the Saturday, taking on Team Esbjerg in Hungary at 18:00 CEST.
In the Machineseeker EHF Champions League, the season opens with a bang on Wednesday September 11 as both of last season’s finalists feature in the first games: 2023/24 runners-up Aalborg Håndbold will play HBC Nantes and title holders Barça will visit Kolstad Håndbold, with both games starting at 18:45 CEST. Four games will take place on September 11, and another four will conclude round 1 on Thursday September 12.
The group phase in each competition sees two groups of eight teams vying for places in the knockout round. At the end of the group phase, the two top-ranked teams in each group qualify directly for the quarter-finals, skipping the play-off stage. The next four teams on each table ranking will contest the play-offs. The play-offs and quarter-finals are played over two legs, home and away for each club, with the aggregate winners progressing. From the quarter-finals, the winners of each tie proceed to the EHF FINAL4 events — in Budapest for the EHF Champions League Women and in Cologne for the Machineseeker EHF Champions League.
See the complete schedules for the group phases here: Women; men.