The 1996–97 UEFA Champions League featured 24 teams, with eight teams (the seven top-ranked league champions in the UEFA clubs coefficient table, plus the defending champions from 1995–96) qualifying automatically for the group stage and the remaining 16 (the league champions ranked 8–23 in the coefficient table) playing in a two-legged preliminary round.
The winners of each tie entered the Champions League group stage, while the losers entered the UEFA Cup first round.
The sixteen lowest-ranked associations with teams that qualified for the Champions League entered the qualifying round.
[1] The sixteen teams were divided into seeded and unseeded pots, each containing eight teams, for the draw based on their association's ranking.
4–4 on aggregate; Widzew Łódź won on away goals.