New proposals for Champions League qualification could hamper the likes of Leicester City, Sheffield United and Wolverhampton Wanderers' chances in the competition.

Leicester look certain to qualify for next season's Champions League and could still be joined by the Blades or Wolves but a new proposal could stop them going straight into the Group Stages.

At the moment England, Spain, Germany and Italy all have four spots in the Group Stages but, according to the Athletic, FC Copenhagen have proposed a system that would rank teams based on the last 10 seasons of European competition.

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Of the 79 qualified teams, the bottom 22 would go into the first qualifying stage, the next 13 would join in round two, 12 more in round three, another 12 in the final play-off round and the top 20 would qualify for the group stage automatically.

This season Manchester City, Liverpool, Spurs and Chelsea are all in the top 20 in UEFA's coefficient, so all four would have made the Group Stages automatically under the new proposal.

However this season Leicester look certain to finish in the top four and could still be joined by Sheffield United or Wolves, with fifth place potentially getting into Europe's top competition because of City's ban, and they would not have the same luxury.

Leicester look certain to get into the Champions League next season. Image: PA Images

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Leicester's one previous season in the competition means they are currently 77th in the UEFA coefficient list and would have to enter the competition earlier whilst the other two clubs would certainly enter at the first round of qualification.

Even RB Leipzig and Atalanta would have had to qualify from the first round, had the system been in place this season, and they're both now in the last 16.

On the other side Ajax, Dinamo Kiev, Olympiakos, Porto and PSV Eindhoven would all have qualified straight into the Group Stages, with only Ajax and Olympiakos actually making it from the qualifiers.

Previous proposals have suggested semi finalists should automatically qualify the next season. Image: PA Images

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Bigger clubs from smaller leagues would therefore benefit but smaller clubs from bigger leagues would be the biggest losers, whilst big clubs from big leagues would still expect to qualify.

There has been talk about changing the format of the competition before with smaller clubs wanting to break up the monopoly that the big teams hold over them.