The 2014–15 UEFA Youth League knockout phase began on 27 January with the round of 16 and concluded with the final on 13 April 2015 at Colovray Stadium in Nyon, Switzerland, to decide the champions of the 2014–15 UEFA Youth League.[1]
Each tie in the knockout phase was played as a single match. If the score was level at the end of normal time, a penalty shoot-out was used to determine the winner (no extra time was played).[1]
The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:
In the draw for the round of 16, the eight group winners were seeded, and the eight group runners-up were unseeded. The seeded teams were drawn against the unseeded teams, with the seeded teams hosting the match. Teams from the same group or the same association could not be drawn against each other.
In the draws for the quarter-finals onwards, there were no seedings, and teams from the same group or the same association could be drawn against each other. The draw also decided the home team for each quarter-final, and the "home" team for administrative purposes for each semi-final and final (which were played on neutral ground).
The draw for the knockout phase was held on 15 December 2014, 14:00 CET, at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.[2][4][5] On 17 July 2014, the UEFA emergency panel ruled that Ukrainian and Russian clubs would not be drawn against each other "until further notice" due to the political unrest between the countries.[6] Therefore, Ukrainian club Shakhtar Donetsk and Russian club Zenit Saint Petersburg could not be drawn against each other in the round of 16. The winners of the ties involving these two clubs could also not be drawn against each other in the quarter-finals.