2020–21 European Rugby Champions Cup

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic delaying the end of the previous tournament twenty-four clubs from the three major European domestic and regional leagues will compete in the Champions Cup in a one-year exceptional basis.[4] EPCR chief Vincent Gaillard confirmed the 24-team tournament in August 2020.[5][6]

The distribution of teams is:

• England: eight clubs
  • The top eight clubs in Premiership Rugby
• France: eight clubs
  • The top eight clubs in the Top 14
• Ireland, Italy, Scotland, Wales: eight clubs
  • The top four sides (not including the South African sides, which are ineligible for EPCR competitions) in both conferences in the Pro14.

While the 2019–20 Top 14 season was cancelled due to COVID-19,[7] the Premiership and Pro14 resumed in August 2020.[8][9] However, the Pro14 announced in June 2020 that their European representation would be decided by standings after round 13, the final series of games before the hiatus.[10] The following teams have qualified for the tournament via their league performance.

Premiership	Top 14	Pro14
England	France	Ireland	Scotland	Wales
Bath Bristol Bears Exeter Chiefs Gloucester Harlequins Northampton Saints Sale Sharks Wasps	Bordeaux Bègles Clermont La Rochelle Lyon Montpellier Racing 92 Toulon Toulouse	Connacht Leinster Munster Ulster	Edinburgh Glasgow Warriors	Dragons Scarlets

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 and SF for losing Semi-finalist.

Team	Coach / Director of Rugby	Captain	Stadium	Capacity	Method of qualification
Bath	Stuart Hooper	Charlie Ewels	The Recreation Ground	14,509	Premiership top 8 (4th) (SF)
Bordeaux Bègles	Christophe Urios	Jefferson Poirot	Stade Chaban-Delmas	34,694	Top 14 top 8 (1st)
Bristol Bears	Pat Lam	Steve Luatua	Ashton Gate	27,000	Premiership top 8 (3rd) (SF)
Clermont	Franck Azéma	Morgan Parra	Parc des Sports Marcel Michelin	19,022	Top 14 top 8 (6th)
Connacht	Andy Friend	Jarrad Butler	Galway Sportsgrounds	8,129	Pro14 Conference B (4th)
Dragons	Dean Ryan	Rhodri Williams	Rodney Parade	8,700	Pro14 Conference A (5th)
Edinburgh	Richard Cockerill	Stuart McInally	Murrayfield	12,464[lower-alpha 1]	Pro14 Conference B (1st) (SF)
Exeter Chiefs	Rob Baxter	Jack Yeandle	Sandy Park	13,593	Premiership top 8 (1st) (CH)
Glasgow Warriors	Danny Wilson	Fraser Brown Ryan Wilson	Scotstoun Stadium	7,351	Pro14 Conference A (3rd)
Gloucester	George Skivington	Lewis Ludlow	Kingsholm Stadium	16,115	Premiership top 8 (7th)
Harlequins	Paul Gustard Billy Millard	Stephan Lewies	Twickenham Stoop	14,800	Premiership top 8 (6th)
La Rochelle	Ronan O'Gara	Victor Vito	Stade Marcel-Deflandre	16,000	Top 14 top 8 (5th)
Leinster	Leo Cullen	Jonathan Sexton	RDS Arena Aviva Stadium	18,500 51,700	Pro14 Conference A (1st) (CH)
Lyon	Pierre Mignoni	Baptiste Couilloud Félix Lambey	Matmut Stadium de Gerland	25,000	Top 14 top 8 (2nd)
Montpellier	Xavier Garbajosa	Fulgence Ouedraogo	Altrad Stadium	15,697	Top 14 top 8 (8th)
Munster	Johann van Graan	Peter O'Mahony	Thomond Park	25,600	Pro14 Conference B (2nd) (SF)
Northampton Saints	Chris Boyd	Lewis Ludlam Alex Waller	Franklin's Gardens	15,200	Premiership top 8 (8th)
Racing 92	Laurent Travers	Henry Chavancy	Paris La Défense Arena	30,681	Top 14 top 8 (3rd)
Sale Sharks	Paul Deacon	Jono Ross	AJ Bell Stadium	12,000	Premiership top 8 (5th)
Scarlets	Glenn Delaney	Ken Owens	Parc y Scarlets	14,870	Pro14 Conference B (3rd)
Toulon	Patrice Collazo	Raphaël Lakafia	Stade Mayol	18,200	Top 14 top 8 (4th)
Toulouse	Ugo Mola	Julien Marchand	Stade Ernest-Wallon	19,500	Top 14 top 8 (7th)
Ulster	Dan McFarland	Iain Henderson	Ravenhill Stadium	18,196	Pro14 Conference A (2nd) (RU)
Wasps	Lee Blackett	Dan Robson Thomas Young	Ricoh Arena	32,609	Premiership top 8 (2nd) (RU)

A total of 24 teams will participate in the 2020–21 competition. These teams will be the teams finishing in the top 8 spots from England's Premiership, the regional Pro14, and France's Top 14 competition. These twenty four teams will be broken down into two pools of twelve. Four rounds of inter-pool play will be followed by a knockout stage, featuring two-legged quarterfinals, and single leg semi-finals and the final (to be held in Marseille on 22 May 2021)

For the purposes of the pool draw, the clubs will be separated into tiers based on their league finishing position, and clubs from the same league in the same tier will not be drawn into the same pool. The number 1 and number 2 ranked clubs from each league will be in Tier 1, the number 3 and number 4 ranked clubs will be in Tier 2, the number 5 and 6 ranked clubs will be in Tier 3, and the number 7 and number 8 ranked clubs will be Tier 4.

Pool play will feature the Tier 1 teams playing the Tier 4 teams in their pool (that are not from the same league) twice in a home and away manner, while the Tier 2 and 3 clubs will follow in a similar manner.

The four teams from each pool with the best points will qualify for the knockout stage. Teams finishing 5th through 8th after pool play will join the Challenge Cup at the round of 16 stage (joining eight qualifiers from the Challenge Cup pool stage) In total, eight weekends of play will be provided for, one less than in previous seasons.[6]

Tier	Rank	Top 14	Premiership	Pro14
1	1	Bordeaux Bègles	Exeter Chiefs	Leinster
	2	Lyon	Wasps	Ulster
2	3	Racing 92	Bristol Bears	Munster
	4	Toulon	Bath	Edinburgh
3	5	La Rochelle	Sale Sharks	Scarlets
	6	Clermont	Harlequins	Connacht
4	7	Toulouse	Gloucester	Glasgow Warriors
	8	Montpellier	Northampton Saints	Dragons

[[File:

Bath

Exeter

Wasps

Gloucester

Harlequins

Northampton

Sale

Bristol

Clermont

Lyon

Montpellier

Racing

La Rochelle

Toulouse

Bordeaux

Toulon

Leinster

Munster

Ulster

Connacht

Edinburgh

Glasgow

Scarlets

Dragons

Locations

|1500px|alt=Locations of teams of the 2020–21 European Rugby Champions Cup pool stage.
Green: Pool A; Red: Pool B.]]

Locations of teams of the 2020–21 European Rugby Champions Cup pool stage.
Green: Pool A; Red: Pool B.

The draw took place on 28 October 2020 at the Maison du Sport International in Lausanne, Switzerland. The 24 teams were draw into the two pools as follows, this also shows their opponents.[11] Fixtures were announced on 13 November 2020.

Pool A

Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	Diff	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts
Leinster	2	2	0	0	70	33	+37	9	4	2	0	10
Wasps	2	2	0	0	57	22	+35	9	3	2	0	10
Bordeaux Bègles	2	2	0	0	63	20	+43	8	1	1	0	9
La Rochelle	2	2	0	0	41	8	+33	6	1	1	0	9
Scarlets	2	2	0	0	51	19	+32	6	2	1	0	9
Edinburgh	2	1	0	1	24	28	–4	2	4	0	1	5
Toulon	2	1	0	1	26	42	—16	2	6	0	0	4
Sale Sharks	2	0	0	2	29	42	–13	4	3	0	1	1
Northampton Saints	2	0	0	2	31	51	–20	3	5	0	1	1
Bath	2	0	0	2	19	51	–32	2	6	0	1	1
Montpellier	2	0	0	2	28	68	–40	3	10	0	0	0
Dragons	2	0	0	2	16	71	–55	2	11	0	0	0

[12]

Pool B

Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	Diff	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts
Lyon	2	2	0	0	83	10	+73	12	1	1	0	10
Racing 92	2	2	0	0	75	29	+46	11	4	2	0	10
Toulouse	2	2	0	0	57	22	+35	8	3	2	0	10
Munster	2	2	0	0	60	38	+22	5	5	0	0	8
Clermont	2	1	0	1	82	77	+5	11	8	2	0	6
Bristol Bears	2	1	0	1	65	69	–4	9	9	2	0	6
Exeter Chiefs	2	1	0	1	42	28	+14	6	4	1	0	5
Gloucester	2	1	0	1	48	89	–41	6	12	1	0	5
Ulster	2	0	0	2	56	67	–11	7	9	1	2	3
Connacht	2	0	0	2	40	53	–13	5	8	0	1	1
Harlequins	2	0	0	2	14	70	–56	2	9	0	0	0
Glasgow Warriors	2	0	0	2	0	70	–70	0	10	0	0	0

[13]

• 2020–21 European Rugby Challenge Cup