Moreover, they would also have been automatically qualified for the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League group stage,[3] but since they had already qualified through their league performance, the berth reserved was given to the third-placed team of the 2017–18 Ligue 1, the fifth-ranked association according to next season's access list.

[5] They were unable to defend their title as they qualified for the Champions League knockout phase, and were eliminated by Sevilla in the round of 16.

[11][12] Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Europa League, as noted below: In the default access list, Manchester United entered the group stage (as the sixth-placed team of the 2016–17 Premier League).

When a place was vacated, it was redistributed within the national association by the following rules (regulations Articles 3.03 and 3.04):[7] The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:[17][18] Notably two teams took part in the competition that were not playing in their national top division, Tirana (2nd tier) and Vaduz (representing Liechtenstein, playing in Swiss second tier).

The schedule of the competition was as follows (all draws were held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, unless stated otherwise).

[10][27][28] Matches in the qualifying, play-off, and knockout rounds could also be played on Tuesdays or Wednesdays instead of the regular Thursdays due to scheduling conflicts.

The draw for the group stage was held on 25 August 2017, 13:00 CEST, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.

FC Köln, Lugano, Milan, Östersunds FK, Real Sociedad, Red Star Belgrade, Vardar and Vitesse made their debut appearances in the UEFA Europa League group stage (although Milan and Red Star Belgrade had appeared in the UEFA Cup group stage).

In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.

The UEFA technical study group selected the following 18 players as the squad of the tournament.

[44] The award winner was announced during the 2018–19 UEFA Europa League group stage draw in Monaco on 31 August 2018.