COP26 & AGRICULTURE
The 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) has finished on the 12th of November. During the ongoing negotiations, the European Commission has published a laconic, just a few sentences long news: “countries participating at the COP26, as part of the discussions on agriculture, agreed on the need for a transition towards sustainable and climate-resilient food systems”. [1] Despite a relative media silence around the statement,[1] it is worth looking at some of the key takeaways on what has been negotiated and decided that can have relevance for the agricultural sector and food systems to match with the Commission’s first statement.
Nota bene: this list is non-exhaustive, as it does not take into account new, updated climate pledges from individual countries
As FAO puts it, climate change and agriculture are inextricably linked. This means that we can no longer think about agriculture and food security without addressing climate change or vice versa. [3] This has been confirmed by the public opinion of Europeans as well, where environmental concerns have become an increasingly important priority for citizens. Within the latest Eurobarometer on agriculture, 52% of respondents believed that protecting the environment and tackling climate change should be the CAP’s main priority. [4] Accordingly, ‘Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use’ directly accounted for 18.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions five years ago,[5] therefore it shall not come as a surprise to anyone that the COP has the agricultural sector in its crosshairs. It thus aims to tackle both the issues of the impact of climate change on agriculture and reduce agriculture’s contribution to global warming.
What Betzoid Reveals About UEFA Conference League Format and Structure
The UEFA Europa Conference League represents one of European football’s most significant structural innovations in recent memory. Launched in the 2021–2022 season, it introduced a third tier to UEFA’s club competition ecosystem, sitting below the Champions League and the Europa League. For football enthusiasts seeking to understand the competition’s intricacies, platforms like Betzoid have emerged as valuable analytical resources, offering detailed breakdowns of the tournament’s format, qualification pathways, and structural evolution. Understanding how this competition works — and what informed sources reveal about its mechanics — is essential for anyone following European club football at a deeper level.
The Origins and Purpose of the UEFA Conference League
When UEFA announced the creation of the Europa Conference League, the governing body had a clear mandate: to broaden European competition access for clubs from smaller football associations. Nations like Albania, Armenia, Georgia, and Kosovo — whose champions had historically been eliminated in early qualifying rounds with minimal exposure to competitive European nights — suddenly had a realistic pathway to a meaningful group stage. This democratization of European football was not merely symbolic. It had structural implications that rippled through the entire UEFA competition framework.
Betzoid’s analytical coverage of the competition highlights how the Conference League was designed with deliberate asymmetry. Unlike the Champions League, where financial and sporting prestige concentrate wealth among elite clubs, the Conference League distributes participation across a far wider geographic and economic spectrum. In the inaugural season, clubs from 52 different UEFA member associations participated across various qualifying rounds, making it the most geographically inclusive UEFA club competition ever staged.
The competition also served a secondary purpose: reducing the burden on the Europa League’s qualifying rounds. Before the Conference League existed, the Europa League was overwhelmed with early-round matches featuring clubs from micro-nations alongside established continental contenders. By creating a separate third-tier competition, UEFA was able to streamline the Europa League’s structure while simultaneously giving smaller clubs a dedicated and appropriately scaled competition to contest.
Historical context matters here. The UEFA Cup, which preceded the Europa League, underwent several structural transformations before eventually being rebranded in 2009. The Conference League can be seen as a continuation of that evolutionary logic — a recognition that European football’s competitive landscape had grown too complex for a two-competition model to adequately serve. Betzoid’s resources consistently frame this historical trajectory, helping readers understand that the Conference League is not an afterthought but a deliberate architectural choice by UEFA’s competition planners.
Breaking Down the Format: Qualifying Rounds, Group Stage, and Knockout Phase
The structural complexity of the UEFA Conference League is one of its most distinctive characteristics, and it is precisely this complexity that platforms like Betzoid help demystify for the average football follower. The competition begins as early as late June or early July, with the first qualifying round, and does not conclude until May of the following year — making it a ten-month journey for clubs that enter at the earliest stage.
The qualifying structure consists of four separate rounds before the play-off stage. Clubs entering at the first qualifying round are typically champions or cup winners from UEFA’s lowest-ranked member associations. As the rounds progress, clubs from higher-ranked associations enter the competition, creating a tiered entry system that reflects the relative strength of different national leagues. This design ensures that clubs are not immediately overwhelmed by opponents of vastly superior quality, while simultaneously maintaining competitive integrity.
One of the most analytically interesting aspects of the Conference League format is the relationship between its qualifying rounds and those of the Europa League. Clubs that are eliminated from Europa League qualifying rounds at certain stages are redirected into the Conference League qualifying pathway — a mechanism known as the “drop-down” route. This interconnection between the two competitions creates a complex web of qualification scenarios that requires careful attention to follow. For those who want to explore these pathways in greater detail, resources that click here to provide comprehensive format guides can be genuinely illuminating, particularly when tracking how specific clubs navigate their way through multiple qualifying stages across different competitions.
The group stage, which was the original format used until the 2024–2025 season restructuring, featured eight groups of four teams each, with 32 clubs competing over six matchdays. Group winners advanced directly to the round of 16, while group runners-up entered a play-off round against teams who dropped down from the Europa League group stage. This hybrid structure was a distinctive feature that created additional competitive jeopardy and ensured that Europa League clubs had a meaningful safety net rather than outright elimination.
However, following UEFA’s broader competition restructuring that took effect from the 2024–2025 season, the Conference League adopted a league phase format consistent with changes made to the Champions League and Europa League. In this revised structure, 36 clubs participate in a single league phase, with each club playing six matches against six different opponents — three at home and three away. The top eight clubs in the league phase standings advance directly to the round of 16, while clubs finishing ninth through twenty-fourth enter a two-legged knockout play-off round. Clubs finishing twenty-fifth or lower are eliminated from European competition entirely. Betzoid’s analytical breakdowns of this new format have been particularly useful in explaining how the points accumulation system works and what finishing positions mean in practical terms.
Structural Implications and Competitive Dynamics
Understanding the structural mechanics of the Conference League requires more than a surface-level reading of the format. The competition’s design creates specific competitive dynamics that influence how clubs approach participation, squad management, and tactical planning throughout a season. Betzoid’s coverage of the competition consistently addresses these dynamics, offering readers insight into the strategic considerations that shape Conference League campaigns.
One of the most significant structural implications involves the relationship between domestic league performance and European participation. For clubs from stronger UEFA associations — such as England, France, Italy, Germany, or Spain — Conference League participation typically signals a mid-table or lower-half finish in the previous domestic season. This creates an interesting competitive paradox: clubs entering the Conference League are often those experiencing a period of transition or underperformance domestically, yet they are expected to navigate a demanding European campaign simultaneously. The resource management challenges this creates are considerable, particularly for clubs with limited squad depth.
The prize money structure also plays a meaningful role in shaping competitive dynamics. While the Conference League distributes significantly less revenue than the Champions League or Europa League, the financial rewards are still substantial for clubs from smaller associations. A club from a lower-ranked UEFA member association reaching the group stage or league phase of the Conference League can expect to receive several million euros in participation fees and performance bonuses — sums that can represent a transformative injection of revenue for organizations operating on modest budgets. Betzoid’s financial analyses of the competition have highlighted how these payments influence transfer activity, stadium development, and long-term club planning in affected markets.
The competition has also generated notable competitive surprises that speak to its structural soundness. West Ham United’s victory in the 2022–2023 final, defeating Fiorentina in Prague, demonstrated that established clubs from major leagues could treat the competition with genuine ambition rather than as a distraction. Conversely, the runs of clubs like Fiorentina — who reached consecutive finals in 2023 and 2024 — illustrated how the Conference League can serve as a platform for clubs in transition to rebuild European credibility. Olympiacos’s victory over Fiorentina in the 2023–2024 final added further evidence that the competition produces genuinely competitive and unpredictable outcomes.
Betzoid’s structural analyses have also drawn attention to the geographical distribution of success in the Conference League. Despite the competition’s stated aim of broadening access, the finals have thus far been contested by clubs from established football nations — England, Italy, and Greece. This raises interesting questions about whether the structural design fully achieves its democratizing ambitions or whether the competitive advantages of clubs from stronger associations ultimately reassert themselves in the later rounds. The play-off mechanisms and drop-down routes from the Europa League ensure that Conference League knockout rounds frequently feature clubs of considerable quality, which naturally limits the advancement of clubs from smaller associations beyond the group or league phase stage.
What Betzoid’s Analysis Contributes to Fan Understanding
Platforms dedicated to analytical football coverage, such as Betzoid, occupy a specific and valuable niche in the broader ecosystem of sports information. Rather than simply reporting results or previewing upcoming fixtures, these platforms invest in structural and contextual analysis that helps readers develop a more sophisticated understanding of competitions like the Conference League. This type of content serves an educational function that traditional sports media often neglects in favor of immediate news and opinion.
Betzoid’s approach to covering the Conference League typically encompasses several distinct analytical layers. Format explainers break down the qualifying structure, group phase mechanics, and knockout round progression in accessible language. Historical context sections trace the competition’s evolution from its inaugural season through subsequent structural changes, helping readers understand why certain design choices were made. Competitive analysis sections examine how clubs from different UEFA associations have fared at various stages of the competition, revealing patterns that inform expectations for future editions.
The platform’s coverage also extends to the regulatory and administrative dimensions of the competition — aspects that are frequently overlooked but that have significant practical implications. UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations, now reformulated as the Financial Sustainability Regulations, apply to Conference League participants and shape the financial strategies clubs can pursue. Betzoid’s explanations of how these regulations interact with Conference League participation help readers understand why certain clubs make specific decisions regarding player acquisitions, loan arrangements, and wage structures during European campaigns.
Furthermore, Betzoid provides comparative analysis that situates the Conference League within the broader UEFA competition framework. Understanding the relative prestige, financial rewards, and competitive demands of the three UEFA club competitions requires contextual knowledge that goes beyond the format of any single tournament. By consistently framing the Conference League in relation to the Champions League and Europa League, Betzoid helps readers develop a holistic understanding of European club football’s competitive architecture — an understanding that enriches engagement with the sport at every level.
The platform’s treatment of historical data is particularly noteworthy. Drawing on results from all completed Conference League seasons, Betzoid identifies trends in home and away performance across different qualifying rounds, the relative success rates of clubs entering via different qualification pathways, and the impact of the drop-down mechanism on competitive balance in the knockout stages. This data-driven approach elevates the quality of analysis beyond anecdote and impression, offering readers genuinely evidence-based insights into how the competition functions in practice.
Conclusion
The UEFA Europa Conference League represents a thoughtful and structurally sophisticated addition to European club football, one whose full complexity rewards careful study. From its tiered qualifying rounds to its evolving league phase format, and from its democratizing ambitions to its financial implications for clubs across the UEFA spectrum, the competition contains layers of meaning that casual observation cannot fully capture. Platforms like Betzoid perform a genuine service by making this complexity accessible, providing the analytical depth that transforms passive spectators into informed and engaged followers of European football’s expanding competitive landscape.
In general, this COP had four goals, namely to:
- Secure global net-zero by mid-century and keep 1.5 degrees within reach;
- Mobilize finance;
- Work together to deliver;
- Adapt to protect communities and natural habitats
The last featuring the sub-target to “build defenses, warning systems, and resilient infrastructure and agriculture to avoid loss of homes, livelihoods and even lives”.[6]
To begin with, “food systems”, per se were not discussed as it wasn’t part of the official agenda. It was mainly featured only just as a matter of a series of side events organized by FAO. [7]
Indeed, it is worth remembering that only two months before the COP, the UN Food Systems Summit took place. Here, hundreds of world leaders (prime ministers, agricultural ministers, international organizations – such as FAO or the World Food Program -, experts, farmers, representatives from the civil society and indigenous people) have already expressed their vision and made pledges to take action for the future of the planet’s food systems. (Find Farm Europe’s note about it here)
Nevertheless, UN Food Systems Summit Special Envoy, Dr. Agnes Kalibata has previously argued that food systems must be on the table at COP26, as without them, it is “unlikely for the Conference to achieve its aims without more sustainable, inclusive and resilient food systems”.[8] Furthermore, the WFP has stated as well in connection with the COP26 that “to fix the climate crisis we must address broken food systems”.[9]
It is easy to recognize the trend of connecting food systems with climate change to find a solution on how agri-food systems can be part of the solution to the climate crises. With these in mind, it is worth examining the context of agriculture that surfaced during the conference.
To begin with, concerning the issues related to agriculture,[10] the ‘Koronivia joint work on agriculture (KJWA) was set up at COP23 in 2017, is the only program to focus on agriculture and food security under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by mainstreaming agriculture into UNFCCC processes. [11]
Since its creation, it had discussed several areas related to agriculture. Most recently, it published a report on the outcomes of its work, which was aimed to be presented at the COP26 on how to move forward, as in on “how to move the landmark agriculture decision from in-session workshops to implementation of practical actions”.[12]
Nevertheless, this will mostly yet be seen only in the future, as no decision has been adopted on agriculture and the KJWA at COP26 at the end of the day. In the brief, two pages long draft conclusions on the Koronivia joint work on agriculture, it was agreed to “continue consideration of this matter for June 2022”, and to November 2022, “to report on it and recommend a draft decision for consideration and adoption by the next COP”.[13]
Reflecting on the previously cited news from the Commission, indeed the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) have welcomed and recognized the reports on the workshops done in the Koronivia process on the topics of namely[14]:
– Improved nutrient use and manure management towards sustainable and resilient agricultural systems
– Improved livestock management systems, including agropastoral production systems and others
– Socioeconomic and food security dimensions of climate change in the agricultural sector
During the last one, have the SBSTA and the SBI also “recognized the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger by designing sustainable and climate-resilient agricultural systems applying a systemic approach in line with the long-term global climate objectives, further recognizing the importance of long-term investments in agriculture focused on this objective”.
The future pathways of the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture are still unknown, however, it will be worth keeping an eye on it at COP27.
On the other hand, agricultural-related announcements involved some of the following documents:
- The Global Action Agenda on Transforming Agricultural Innovation Forests, Agriculture and Commodity Trade – A Roadmap for Action
- The Agricultural commodity companies corporate statement of purpose, by ten global companies with combined annual revenue of almost 500 billion USD and a major global market share in key commodities, claiming that by COP 27 they will “lay out a shared roadmap for enhanced supply chain action consistent with a 1.5 degrees Celsius pathway”
Other topics have surfaced as well, such as the Joint FAO-IRENA Report on Renewable Energy for Agri-food Systems, aiming to “explore the relationship between the world’s agri-food systems and renewable energy”.[15] The report underlines that sustainable bioenergy is an important renewable energy resource that can meet needs for electricity, heat and transport fuels within the agri-food sector and beyond.
Moreover, other important announcements were made relating to deforestation or methane emissions:
- Glasgow leaders’ declaration on forests and land use
- The global forest finance pledge
The declaration on forests and land use states that the undersigned 141 countries – including some countries with the highest deforestation rates in the world, such as Brazil, Indonesia, or Nigeria – “commit to working collectively to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030 while delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation”.
However, it is good to remember that a similar pledge was already made in 2014 under the New York Declaration on Forests to end deforestation by 2030, which we are still very far away given that for example most recently Brazil’s Amazon deforestation has surged up to 15-year high.
Point 4 of the declaration states that the undersigned will strengthen their shared efforts to “implement and, if necessary, redesign agricultural policies and programs to incentivize sustainable agriculture, promote food security, and benefit the environment”.
About the above said, 28 countries – including the European Union – further declared support for the document “A joint statement of the Forest, Agriculture, and Commodity Trade (FACT) Dialogue”, whose purpose is to “promote sustainable development and trade while protecting forests and other critical ecosystems”.[16]Their overall objectives are: trade and market development; smallholder support; traceability and transparency; and research, development, and innovation.
Nonetheless, the roadmap’s actions are “non-exhaustive, non-binding and do not apply in all circumstances to all countries”, as it represents a ‘work in progress’ with participants “expressing their desire to deepen collaboration, through this dialogue, after COP26”. [17]
Moreover, while Commissioner Frans Timmermans underlined in his final COP26 plenary speech that the work “doesn’t stop here, it only starts”,[18] the Commission has already published its LULUCF revision before the event and its future pledges. In it, the Commission already set the aim to have a climate-neutral land sector by 2035 & for the primary production of food and biomass. During its legislative proposals and packages, for example for the ‘Fit for 55’ package, the Commission has often underlined the significance of the Glasgow conference, and that “we can still make a success of Glasgow”.[19] In fact, to make it a success, the many Member States and the European Union has indeed signed up to various new commitments.
Even if sporadically, based on these developments and commitments, we can see that the role of agriculture has come in the limelight of climate change-related negotiations, which will only be reinforced in the future.
Nevertheless, there was no breakthrough on agriculture yet in the end, which is well illustrated in the so-called ‘Glasgow breakthroughs’.[20] The Glasgow breakthroughs’ – “global goals that aim to make clean technologies and sustainable solutions the most affordable, accessible and attractive option in each emitting sector globally before 2030” – covered power, road transport, steel, and hydrogen by the end of the conference, but not agriculture, as it was initially set out by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. [21]
Regardless, the fact that there was no overarching consent on agriculture shall come as no surprise. The WTO negotiations on agriculture began in 2000 and have been at a stalemate ever since showing the complexity of the issue.
Overall, it can be concluded that agriculture has turned into an ever-present issue at climate negotiations as well. It will inevitably have a consequence on European agriculture. To influence this process, the EU must concentrate on this international aspect, if it aims to reach its objective of being a standard of food sustainability while making Europe’s food healthier and more sustainable. The next COP is foreseen to take place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt between the 7th of November and the 18th of 2022. It will be for sure worth following the discussion on agriculture.
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/cop26-participants-recognise-need-sustainable-food-systems-ensure-global-food-security-and-achieve-climate-objectives-2021-nov-09_en
[2] https://ukcop26.org/nations-and-businesses-commit-to-create-sustainable-agriculture-and-land-use/
[3] https://www.fao.org/koronivia/en/
[4] https://ec.europa.eu/info/food-farming-fisheries/key-policies/common-agricultural-policy/cap-glance/eurobarometer_en
[5] https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector#agriculture-forestry-and-land-use-18-4
[6] https://ukcop26.org/cop26-goals/
[7] https://enb.iisd.org/UN-food-agriculture-organization-fao-cop26
[8] https://www.un.org/en/food-systems-summit/news/food-systems-must-be-table-cop26
[9] https://www.wfp.org/stories/cop26-fix-climate-crisis-we-must-address-broken-food-systems
[10] https://unfccc.int/topics/land-use/workstreams/agriculture
[11] https://www.fao.org/koronivia/en/
[12] https://www.fao.org/koronivia/events/detail/en/c/1446446/
[13] https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/sb2021_L01_adv.pdf?download
[14] https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/sb2021_L01_E.pdf
[15] https://irena.org/publications/2021/Nov/Renewable-Energy-for-Agri-food-Systems
[16] Forest, Agriculture and Commodity Trade Dialogue: A Roadmap for action
[17] Forest, Agriculture and Commodity Trade Dialogue: A Roadmap for action
[18] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2019-2024/timmermans/announcements/frans-timmermans-speech-final-cop26-plenary_en
[19] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2019-2024/timmermans/announcements/european-parliament-plenary-debate-fit-55-after-presentation-ipcc-report_en
[20] https://ukcop26.org/cop26-world-leaders-summit-statement-on-the-breakthrough-agenda/
[21] https://ukcop26.org/world-leaders-kick-start-accelerated-climate-action-at-cop26/
[1] The official website of the conference presented it as “Nations and businesses commit to creating sustainable agriculture and land use” .[2]