The 2024/25 UEFA Champions League knockout phase play-off draw took place on 31 January.
In 2024–2025, the knockout phase play-offs were added to the competition. While the top eight teams in the league phase advance automatically to the round of 16, the teams that finished in ninth to twenty-fourth place begin the knockout stages.
They compete in a two-leg knockout phase play-off to guarantee their place in the round of sixteen. From that point on, the tournament is a bracket.
The teams that finished in ninth to sixteenth place in the league phase were seeded for the first draw of the knockout phase and paired with a team ranked 17th–24th. The seeded team will, in theory, play the return leg at home.
The final league positions of the teams were also used to pre-define potential opponents. Teams who placed ninth and tenth, for instance, will play the teams that placed twenty-three or twenty-four; teams that placed eleventh or twelveth were chosen to play either the teams that placed twenty-one or twenty-two; and so on.
The round of 16 is reached by the eight teams that advance from the knockout phase play-offs.
In accordance with the league phase standings, eight bowls were set up for the draw, and the balls bearing the names of the seeded and unseeded teams were arranged in pairs in the matching marked bowls.
Starting with the teams in 23/24 and ending with those in 17/18, the draw began with the unseeded teams, assigning each of the two unseeded teams to one of the pertinent pre-determined slots in the bracket.
One ball was taken from the bowl containing the two relevant ranked teams (i.e. the teams ranked 23 and 24) and was opened to display the team. The first team drawn from this bowl was placed in their reserved spot on the silver side of the bracket.
The other unseeded team of the pairing was then drawn and displayed, and allocated in the corresponding reserved spot on the blue side of the bracket.The same procedure was carried out with the remaining unseeded clubs.
Following the assignment of each unseeded team pairing to its proper spot on the bracket, the draw proceeded with the seeded teams, beginning with the pairing rated 15/16.
For the unseeded teams, the procedure was the same as previously said; the first team selected from the appropriate bowl was placed in the reserved slot on the bracket’s silver side, while the second team was placed on its blue side.
In order to finish the pairings for the knockout round play-offs, the process was repeated for the remaining pairs, ending with the teams rated 9/10. The return leg is, in theory, played at home by the teams that are seeded.