Ligue 1 2024/2025 season guide: newcomers, calendar, the most high-profile transfers

The 2024/2025 club season in the top leagues will start very soon. The Dailysports team have put together a guide to the upcoming French Ligue 1 campaign.

Who will play in the 2024/2025 Ligue 1 season?

Last season, two teams were directly relegated from Ligue 1: Clermont and Lorient. Another club, namely Metz, failed to defend their place in the French top flight in the knockout stages, losing to St Etienne. It was this team, as well as Auxerre and Angers, that were added to Ligue 1 for the 2024/2025 season.

The list of participants looks like this:

• Angers
• Brest
• Le Havre
• Lance
• Lille
• Monaco
• Montpellier
• Nantes
• Nice
• Olympique Lyon
• Olympique de Marseille
• Auxerre
• PSG
• Reims
• Rennes
• Saint-Étienne
• Strasbourg
• Toulouse

No one is surprised by the fact that the defence of the league title will be hosted by PSG this coming season.

The format of the exchange between the leagues has not changed compared to last season. The two worst teams in Ligue 1 will fly directly into Ligue 2, while the 16th team in Ligue 1 will take part in a play-off final for promotion. It has a somewhat patchy structure, but it is quite simple to figure out.

The fourth and fifth teams in League 2 will play in the quarter-finals. In the semi-finals, the winner of that match will play the third team in League 2, and the winner of the semi-final will play the 16th team in League 1. Actually, this is how St Etienne beat Metz in the final and qualified for Ligue 1.

When are the Ligue 1 matches for the 2024/2025 season?

The 2024/2025 Ligue 1 season will run from 16 August 2024 to 17 May 2025. During the campaign, there are international breaks for national team matches (2-10 September, 7-15 November, 11-19 November 2024, and 17-25 March 2025).

France will also have a three-week winter break, from 15 December 2024 to 5 January 2025.

What coaching changes happened before the season started?

Seven of the 18 teams changed their coaches before the start of the season:

• Reims: Samba Diwara (left) - Luca Jelsner (arrived)
• Marseille: Jean-Louis Gasquet (left) - Roberto De Zerbi (arrived)
• Nice: Francesco Farioli (left) - Franck Heise (came)
• Lille: Paulo Fonseca (left) - Bruno Genesio (came)
• Lance: Franck Heise (left) - Will Still (came)
• Le Havre: Luca Jelsner (left) - Didier Digard (came)
• Strasbourg: Patrick Vieira (left) - Liam Rosenior (came)

What high-profile transfers happened in Ligue 1 before the start of the season?

Obviously, the most high-profile transfer was a transfer out rather than in. PSG said goodbye to Kylian Mbappe, who left for Real Madrid.

But the Parisians also had some high-profile purchases, like Eintracht defender Willian Pacho.

Who will represent Ligue 1 in the European Cups?

Ligue 1 is not one of the four strongest leagues in Europe, so France's representation in the European Cups is different from Spain or England.

France also delegates four teams to the Champions League, but only three of them (namely PSG, Monaco and Brest) have travelled to the league stage. The fourth team, namely Lille will have to qualify from the third round. Same as Lance, but this team gets to the playoff round, and not the Champions League, but the Conference League.

Two more French teams, namely Nice and Lyon have made it to the Europa League league stage.

Next season's representation will be similar, with the top three making it to the league stage and the fourth team making it to the third qualifying round of the Champions League. The fifth team and the French Cup winner qualify for the Europa League, while the sixth team qualifies for the Conference League.

If the French Cup winner is a top-five Ligue 1 team that has already guaranteed a place in the Champions League or Europa League through the championship, then together with them the sixth team will qualify for the Europa League and the seventh team will qualify for the Conference League.