The 2022–23 European Rugby Champions Cup is the ninth season of the European Rugby Champions Cup, the annual club

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

competition run by

European Professional Club Rugby European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) is the governing body and organiser of the two major European rugby union club tournaments: the European Rugby Champions Cup and the European Rugby Challenge Cup. A third tournament, the European Rugby Chall ...

(EPCR) for teams from the top five nations in European rugby and South Africa. It is the 28th season of pan-European professional club rugby competition. Dutch beer brand

Heineken Heineken Lager Beer ( nl, Heineken Pilsener), or simply Heineken () is a pale lager beer with 5% alcohol by volume produced by the Dutch brewing company Heineken N.V. Heineken beer is sold in a green bottle with a red star. History On 15 Feb ...

will continue as the title sponsor of the competition, extending their deal after their previous agreement expired at the end of the 2021–22 season. This is the first year to feature the top teams from South Africa, following the inaugural

United Rugby Championship The United Rugby Championship (URC) is an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales. The current name was adopted in 2021 when the league expanded to include four South Afr ...

season. The tournament commenced in December 2022. The final will be held at

Aviva Stadium Aviva Stadium (also known as Lansdowne Road) is a sports stadium located in Dublin, Ireland, with a capacity for 51,700 spectators (all seated). It is built on the site of the former Lansdowne Road Stadium, which was demolished in 2007, and ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

, Ireland on May 20, 2023.

Teams

Twenty-four clubs from the three major European domestic and regional leagues compete in the Champions Cup. The distribution of teams is: * England: eight clubs ** The top eight clubs from

Premiership Rugby Premiership Rugby, officially known as Gallagher Premiership Rugby, or the Gallagher Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is an English professional rugby union competition. The Premiership has consisted of thirteen clubs since 2021, and is the ...

* France: eight clubs ** The top eight clubs from the

Top 14 The Top 14 () is a professional rugby union club competition that is played in France. Created in 1892, the Top 14 is at the top of the national league system operated by the French National Rugby League, also known by its French initialism o ...

* Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, Wales: eight clubs ** The top side in each of the four regional shields from the

(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. The following teams have qualified for the tournament as of 30 May 2022.

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.

Seedings and structure

For the purposes of the pool draw, the 24 clubs were separated into tiers based on their league finishing position, and clubs from the same league in the same tier were not drawn into the same pool. The number 1 and number 2 ranked clubs from each league are in Tier 1, the number 3 and number 4 ranked clubs are in Tier 2, the number 5 and 6 ranked clubs are in Tier 3, and the number 7 and number 8 ranked clubs are in Tier 4. In effect, each pool contains one team from each of the three leagues, from each of the four tiers. Pool play will feature the Tier 1 teams playing the Tier 4 teams in their pool twice, home and away, while the Tier 2 and 3 clubs will follow in a similar manner. However a team will not play the relevant team from its own league i.e. the tier 1 French team will play the tier 4 English and tier 4 URC team in its pool, but will not play the tier 4 French team in its pool. Each team will therefore play four pool games over four match weekends. As with the previous two seasons, the 24 teams will play four rounds of pool matches. These will take place from 9–18 December 2022 and 13–22 January 2023. Sixteen teams will qualify for the knockout rounds. In a change from the 2021–22 format, the round of 16 contests will take the form of a single match rather than a two-legged tie. The eight teams from each pool with the best points will qualify for the knockout stage, a single-leg single-elimination bracket of 16 teams. Teams finishing 9th and 10th after pool play will join the Challenge Cup, also at the round of 16 stage (joining ten qualifiers from the Challenge Cup pool stage), once more in a single-leg single-elimination bracket. Last season's home-and-away two legged last 16 round has not been continued.

Pool stage

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.

Pool A

Pool B

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2022-23 Champions Cup Champions Cup European Rugby Champions Cup seasons