  A tournament is called incentive incompatible if it allows for a situation
where a team could be strictly better off by losing. This paper uncovers that
the entry rules of the UEFA Champions League, the most prestigious club
football competition in Europe, suffer from this shortcoming again from the
2024/25 season. Consequently, a match with misaligned incentives has been
barely avoided in the 2023/24 German Bundesliga. Two straightforward solutions
are recommended. Fairness can be easily guaranteed by reversing the order of
two paragraphs in the UEFA Champions League regulation.
