Union of European Football Association

The Union of European Football Association is the largest administrative body in European Football. The organisation represents all the football nations and clubs in Europe and handles issues related to the organisation, administration and marketing of European football.

UEFA football is one of six international continental football administration bodies and represents 53 European national football associations. The organisation wields exceptional power in world football, and as organiser of several major European football tournaments controls media rights and game regulations.

UEFA Football History

The establishment of UEFA dates back to 1954 when its first members, the Belgian, French and Italian football associations, signed the organisation into existence in Basel Switzerland. After moving to Paris for a brief period, the UEFA headquarters were moved back to Switzerland in 1959 and have remained there ever since.

UEFA established its first major European club competition in 1955. The European Champion Clubs Cup (now the Champions League) was organised to give European domestic league champions the opportunity to contest an annual tournament.

Following the success of the European Cup, UEFA set up a parallel tournament for domestic cup winners in 1960 - the Cup Winners Cup. In 1971 the third major UEFA football tournament was founded when the Inter Cities Fairs Cup was taken over by UEFA and converted into the UEFA Europa League.

Apart from these three major competitions, several other European club competitions were organised by UEFA. These included the Intertoto cup or ‘Cup for the Cupless’ which provided smaller, less successful clubs with an opportunity to win silverware and play in the UEFA Europa League. The UEFA Super Cup was organised to pit the winners of the UEFA Europa League against the winners of the Champions League.

The UEFA Football League Table

The UEFA League table is the tool used to determine which clubs will compete the different European club competitions. The League table utilises a set of coefficients to calculate a ranking for each of the football leagues played in Europe.

These rankings are then used to decide how many clubs from each league will be entered into the various UEFA club competitions. The table also determines what the clubs in specific leagues need to accomplish domestically to qualify for UEFA football competitions.

In essence the table is intended to reward successful, highly competitive national leagues with increased representation in European competition. At the same time it is also designed to prevent the smallest national leagues from being marginalized.