2025–26 European Rugby Champions Cup

The 2025–26 European Rugby Champions Cup (known as the 2025–26 Investec Champions Cup for sponsorship reasons) was the twelfth season of the European Rugby Champions Cup, the annual club rugby union competition run by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) for professional clubs. It was the 31st season of the pan-European professional club rugby competition.

The final was played at San Mamés Stadium, Bilbao.

Bordeaux Bègles entered the competition as defending champions with Northampton Saints entering as beaten finalists. On 3 May the final was confirmed to be between reigning champions Bordeaux Bègles in a second successive final, and Irish province Leinster, reaching a record ninth Champions Cup final, and their fourth such final in five seasons.

In the final, Bordeaux Bègles comfortably emerged as winners over the Irish side 41 - 19, to claim their second title, and condemn Leinster to a record fifth final defeat.

Twenty-four clubs from the three major European domestic and regional leagues qualified for the 2025–26 edition of the Champions Cup. As both European trophy winners from the previous season achieved top eight domestic finishes, qualification was won on league standing alone.

The distribution of teams was:

• England: eight clubs
  • The top eight clubs from the 2024–25 Premiership.
• France: eight clubs
  • The top eight clubs from the 2024–25 Top 14.
• Ireland, Scotland, South Africa and Wales: eight clubs
  • The top eight sides from the 2024–25 United Rugby Championship.

Below is the list of coaches, captain and stadiums with their method of qualification for each team.

For the purposes of the draw, the 24 clubs were separated into two tiers, Tier 1 and Tier 2, based on their league finishing position; with the winners of each domestic competition (Bath, Toulouse and Leinster) and the defending Champions Cup winners, Bordeaux Bègles, seeded in the top tier. The remaining twenty teams will be seeded in the second tier.

Like previous seasons, the four pools will be made up of six teams, with each pool containing two clubs from each of leagues; however, clubs from the same URC Shield cannot be in the same pool.

Teams were drawn into pools in Dublin on 2 July 2025. Teams will be awarded four points for a win, two for a draw, one for scoring four tries in a game, and one for losing by fewer than eight points.

Each pool consisted of six teams, two from each of the three contributing leagues. Each team played the four teams not from its own league once with the top four teams advancing to the round of 16, where the top two teams in each group are given home advantage. The fifth placed teams 'dropped' into the Challenge Cup knockout rounds, joining twelve clubs from that competition's pool stages in the knockout stage as the ninth to twelfth seeds, earning away ties with the fifth-to eighth-ranked sides from the Challenge Cup's pool stage. The sixth placed team in each group is eliminated.

The knockout stage followed the same format as used in previous years, beginning with a single-leg round of 16. This round was then followed by the quarter-finals and semi-finals, before the tournament concluded with the final at the San Mamés Stadium in Bilbao on 23 May 2026.

All clubs were ranked in descending order, based firstly on their ranking in their pool, and subsequently on the number of competition points they have accumulated, to create an overall ranking from 1 to 16. The pool winners were ranked 1 to 4, the second-placed clubs were ranked 5 to 8, the third-placed clubs were ranked 9 to 12, and the fourth-placed clubs were ranked 13 to 16.

Whilst the round of 16 followed a pre-determined format, the quarter-finals saw home advantage given to the higher ranked team, based on a pre-determined match-up. As such the teams seeded 1 to 4 were guaranteed home advantage if they reached the quarter-final, and teams seeded 13 to 16 were guaranteed an away fixture if they do so. Whether a team ranked from 5 to 12 would play home or away depended on other results in their section of the bracket.

At the semi-final stage, the higher ranked team had 'home country' advantage, with the match to be played in a suitably-sized stadium in their home union's territory, but not necessarily their own normal home stadium.

Following the pool stages, a record-setting seven English teams made it into the knockout bracket.

Notes:

• Match referee Nika Amashukeli was replaced by Ben Connor during half-time, following an injury sustained in the first half.