Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

UEFA coefficient

Statistics used for ranking and seeding teams From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Remove ads
Remove ads

In European football, the UEFA coefficients are statistics based in weighted arithmetic means used for ranking and seeding teams in club and international competitions. Introduced in 1979 for men's football tournaments (country rankings only),[1][2] and after applied in women's football and futsal, the coefficients are calculated by UEFA, who administer football within Europe, and the Asian parts of some transcontinental countries.

The confederation publishes three types of rankings: one analysing a single season, a five-year span, and a ten-year span. For men's competitions, three sets of coefficients are calculated:

Remove ads

Men's association coefficient

Summarize
Perspective

Thumb
Map of UEFA associations whose teams have reached the group stage of the UEFA Champions League
  UEFA member association that has been represented in the group stage
  UEFA member association that has not been represented in the group stage
  Not a UEFA member
Thumb
Map of UEFA associations whose teams reached the group stage of the UEFA Europa League
  UEFA member association that has been represented in the group stage
  UEFA member association that has not been represented in the group stage
  Not a UEFA member
Thumb
Map of UEFA associations whose teams reached the group stage of the UEFA Conference League
  UEFA member association that has been represented in the group stage
  UEFA member association that has not been represented in the group stage
  Not a UEFA member

The association coefficient is used to rank the football associations of Europe, and thus determine the number of clubs from an association that will participate in the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Europa League and the UEFA Conference League.

The UEFA ranking determines the number of teams competing in the season after the next, not in the first season after the publication of the ranking. Thus, the rankings at the end of the 2022–23 season determine the team allocation by association in the 2024–25 (not 2023–24) UEFA season. This is unrelated to the selection of teams which will fill each allocation through the individual association leagues and national cups (which is decided in the preceding season).

This coefficient is determined by the results of the clubs of the associations in the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and the UEFA Conference League games over the past five seasons. Two points are awarded for each win by a club, and one for a draw (points are halved in the qualifying rounds). Results determined by extra time do count in determining the allocation of points, but results determined by penalty shootouts do not affect the allocation of points, other than for bonus points given for qualification into the latter rounds. The number of points awarded each season is divided by the number of teams that participated for that association in that season. This number is calculated to three decimal places then truncated (e.g. 2+23 would be truncated to 2.666).[4][5]

To determine an association's coefficient for a particular season, the coefficients for the last five seasons are added. Bonus points are added to the number of points scored in a season. Bonus points are allocated for:[6]

Bonus Points

More information 2024–25 through 2026–27 seasons, Round ...

UEFA uses this coefficient system to decide which teams gain automatic entry to the league phase and which teams must go through qualifying. For instance, the teams who occupy the top four league places in the associations ranked 1 to 4 in UEFA competition, the top three teams of the association ranked 5, the top two teams of the association ranked 6, and the champions in the associations ranked 7 to 10 gain automatic entry into the league phase for the following season's Champions League competition.

Current ranking

The ranking below takes into account of each association's performance in European competitions from 2020–21 to 2024–25, with the 2024–25 season underway. The final ranking at the end of the 2024–25 season will be used to determine the minimum number of places for each association in the 2026–27 UEFA club competitions.

The two highest annual coefficients from the 2023–24 season and onward are used to determine two additional European Performance Spots (one per association) in the Champions League for the next season. These associations are highlighted in bold; prior to the 2023–24 season only the leading association was highlighted.

As of 8 May 2025, the coefficients are as follows:[7][8]

More information Ranking, Member association (L: League, C: Cup, LC: League Cup) ...
  Indicates active associations which have all their teams still competing in this season's UEFA club competitions (i.e. Champions League, Europa League or Conference League).
  Indicates active associations which have some teams still competing in this season's UEFA club competitions.
  Indicates associations which have no teams remaining in this season's UEFA club competitions.
  1. Number of teams still active from association in UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League or UEFA Conference League.
  2. European Performance Spots: The two associations with the highest one-year coefficient in the most recent season are awarded an additional berth in the Champions League league stage.
  3. The winner of the league cup of England is given a place in the UEFA Conference League by special permission from UEFA (replacing the lowest-ranked league team which would have qualified).
  4. Did not participate in Europe this season, but were assigned 4.333 (the lowest coefficient obtained in the previous 5 seasons)
  5. The Liechtenstein Football Association does not organise a national league competition and all its seven clubs compete in the Swiss football league system.[9][10] As a result, the only competitor from Liechtenstein in European competitions is the Liechtenstein Cup winners, who qualify for the UEFA Europa League or UEFA Conference League, depends on the association rankings.[10]

Notes

  1. ^
    Russia (RUS): On 28 February 2022, Russian football clubs and national teams were suspended from FIFA and UEFA competitions due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[11][12][13] On 2 May 2022, UEFA confirmed that all Russian clubs would be excluded from the 2022–23 UEFA competitions and be assigned the minimum coefficient from the previous 5 seasons (4.333) for 2022–23.[14] Technically, in the UEFA official website, the coefficient of each club is only counted once they have played their first game in the competition. As a result, the coefficient of Russia will be counted as zero while the season is ongoing, because no clubs are participating in the UEFA competitions that season. The minimum coefficient from the previous 5 seasons will only be assigned upon completion of the season, which happened in both 2022–23 and 2023–24 seasons.[15][16]

Liechtenstein's status and similar cases

According to the UEFA regulations a National League needs to consist of at least eight clubs to be considered valid, otherwise no participants of such a league will be allowed to enter European competitions.

  • There are only seven clubs that are active in Liechtenstein, all of which play in neighbouring Switzerland's league competitions.
  • Prior to the introduction of the Welsh Premier League, now known as Cymru Premier, in 1992, Wales also had a single participant in European competitions, the winner (or best placed Welsh team as several English teams also competed) of the Welsh Cup, in the now defunct UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, two-legged ties in the knockout stages of the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League and 2019–20 UEFA Europa League, and in the qualifying stages of the 2020–21 UEFA Champions League and 2020–21 UEFA Europa League, were changed to single-leg matches. In those cases where there was such a change in format, the following points were awarded instead:[17][18]

  • 3 points for a win (1.5 points for qualifying and play-off matches)
  • 2 points for a draw (1 point for qualifying and play-off matches)
  • 1 point for a loss (0.5 points for qualifying and play-off matches)

This translates to the original system (2 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss) by considering the "unplayed leg" as a draw.

Distribution of team competition quotas

2024–27

The following is the default access list for the 2024–25 and future seasons.[19] Rankings in table exclude Liechtenstein which receives one Conference League qualifying berth for their cup winner.

More information Champions League, Europa League ...

    History

    The FARoyal Spanish Football FederationThe FARoyal Spanish Football FederationItalian Football FederationDFBItalian Football FederationThe FADFBThe FARoyal Spanish Football Federation

    Following the introduction of the UEFA Cup in 1971, the competition began to grow in complexity having more clubs than the European Champions Cup and the Cup Winners' Cup, reaching up to four from a single country. UEFA began to publish association rankings in 1979,[1][2] to identify the number of participants for each association in the UEFA Cup.

    Subsequently, for statistical purposes, various rankings were introduced to portray the history of the associations. According to the prorated (extended) calculation system, only four associations have succeeded in being ranked as the top European association.[1]

    Following the Heysel Stadium disaster, all English teams were banned from UEFA competitions in 1985. The ban was only lifted after five seasons, with the knock-on effects continuing to impact on English football for a total of nine years from 1986 to 1994.[20] Having been top in 1985, England were un-ranked in 1990[21] and would not regain the top position until 2008.[22]

    Top associations by period

    The following data indicates the three top-ranked associations in each five-year period.[1] Data prior to 1975–1979 period has been calculated, but precedes the first published by the Confederation and has merely informative value.[1] Note that the table take into account the results from the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, which was a non-UEFA competition that took place until 1971, whose teams in the first editions were representing cities instead of clubs.

    More information Years, 1st place ...

    The table shows the ranking of nations with respect to the total number of years in the top three of the rankings:

    As of 1 May 2025
    More information Association, 1st ...
    Remove ads

    Women's association coefficient

    Summarize
    Perspective

    Current ranking

    The ranking below takes into account of each association's performance in European competitions from 2020–21 to 2024–25, with the 2024–25 season currently taking place.

    The final ranking at the end of the 2024–25 season will be used to determine the number of places for each association in the 2026–27 UEFA Women's Champions League.

    As of 27 April 2025 the coefficients are as follows:[23]

    More information Ranking, Member association (L: League) ...
      Indicates active associations which have all their teams still competing in this season's UEFA club competition (i.e. UEFA Women's Champions League).
      Indicates active associations which have some teams still competing in this season's UEFA club competition.
      Indicates associations which have no teams remaining in this season's UEFA club competition.
    1. Number of teams still active from association in UEFA Women's Champions League.
    2. Did not participate in Europe this season, but were assigned 1.750 (the lowest coefficient obtained in the previous 5 seasons)
    3. Did not participate in European competitions that season.
    4. No rank, association did not enter in any of the seasons used for computing coefficients (NR)
    5. No women's domestic league (NL)

    Notes

    1. ^
      Russia (RUS): On 28 February 2022, Russian football clubs and national teams were suspended from FIFA and UEFA competitions due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[11][12][13] On 2 May 2022, UEFA confirmed that Russian clubs would be excluded from the 2022–23 UEFA competitions and be assigned the minimum coefficient from the previous 5 seasons (1.750) for 2022–23.[14] Technically, in the UEFA official website, the coefficient of each club will only be counted since they played their first game in the competition. As a result, the coefficient of Russia will be counted as zero because no clubs are participating in the UEFA competitions when the season is ongoing. The minimum coefficient from the previous 5 seasons will be only assigned upon completion of the season, which happened in both 2022–23 and 2023–24 seasons.[24][25]

    History

    Top associations by period

    The following data indicates the three top-ranked women's associations in each five-year period.

    More information Years, 1st place ...

    The table shows the ranking of nations with respect to the total number of years in the top three of the rankings:

    As of May 2024
    More information League, 1st ...
    Remove ads

    Men's club coefficient

    Summarize
    Perspective

    Introduced first in 1990[26] with various calculation principles applied throughout the years,[27] currently the club coefficient is either the sum of the points earned by the club in the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Conference League over the previous five seasons or 20% of the club's association coefficient over the same period, whichever coefficient is higher.[28] This ranking is used by UEFA to determine a club's seeding in club competition draws, including the qualifying and group stages of the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, UEFA Conference League.

    The clubs receive two points for a win, one point for a draw, and no points for a defeat in games of the main stages of the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League. Results determined after extra-time are included in this method, however results determined after penalty shoot-outs are not (the result is considered a draw). Bonus points for entering the Europa League or Conference League group stage / league phase are not additional to win/draw points; they provide a minimum points allowance for participating clubs, whereas bonus points for entering the Champions League group stage / league phase (and those for qualifying to the knockout stage) are additional to win/draw points.

    Qualifying round results are only taken into account if the club is eliminated in one of the rounds (see table below). Otherwise, the qualifying round results are taken into account only for the calculation of the association's coefficient and are halved.[29] The clubs do not receive any points for elimination in the Champions League or Europa League qualifying because those clubs move to the Europa League and/or Conference League and receive points from participation in that competition.[30][31]

    Current club ranking

    The ranking below takes into account of each club's performance in European competitions from 2020–21 to 2024–25, with the 2024–25 season underway.

    The top 25 clubs as of 8 May 2025 are as follows.[32][33]

    More information Ranking, Club ...
      Indicates clubs still active in this season's Champions League.
      Indicates clubs still active in this season's Europa League.
      Indicates clubs still active in this season's Conference League.
      Indicates clubs from active associations in this season's UEFA club competitions.
      Indicates clubs from associations which have no teams remaining in this season's UEFA club competitions.
    1. Did not participate in European competitions that season

    Club point allocations

    2024–25 through 2026–27 seasons

    More information Round, Points awarded ...

    2021–22 through 2023–24 seasons

    More information Round, Points awarded ...

    2018–19 through 2020–21 seasons

    More information Round, Points awarded ...

    Prior to the 2018 club rankings, teams received the sum of their points earned over the last five seasons plus 20% of the club's association coefficient.[29][30]

    Before 1999 a number of strong teams in the UEFA Cup were seeded such that those teams did not meet in the first two rounds. To determine these teams, the sum of the ratio of the number of points achieved to the number of games played by each team, was calculated for the past five seasons.[citation needed]

    Top club by period

    The following data indicate the top-ranked clubs in each 5-year period.[1] Data prior to 1975–1979 period has been calculated, but precedes the first published by the Confederation and has merely informative value.[1]

    More information Years, Club ...

    Top-rated clubs listed by number of times they were top-ranked over a 5-year period since the first period officially analysed (1975–1979):

    Remove ads

    Women's club coefficient

    Summarize
    Perspective

    A club's five-season coefficient is the cumulative total of its five-season coefficients from the reference period and 20% of its association's five-season association's coefficient.[34] This ranking is used by UEFA to determine a club's seeding in club competition draws, including the qualifying and group stages of the UEFA Women's Champions League.

    The distribution of points is symmetrical to the distribution of points in association ranking.

    2021–22 and future seasons

    More information Round, Points awarded ...

    Current team ranking

    The ranking below takes into account of each team's performance in European competitions from 2020–21 to 2024–25, with the 2024–25 season starting 4 September 2024.

    The top 25 clubs as of 27 April 2025 are as follows:[35]

    More information Ranking, Club ...
      Indicates clubs still active in this season's UEFA Women's Champions League.
      Indicates clubs from active associations in this season's UEFA club competition.
      Indicates clubs from associations which have no teams remaining in this season's UEFA club competition.
    1. Did not participate in European competitions that season

    Top club by period

    The following data indicate the top-ranked women's clubs in each 5-year period.

    More information Years, Club ...

    Top-rated women's clubs listed by number of times they were top-ranked over a 5-year period since the first period officially analysed (2001–2005):

    More information Rank, Club ...
    Remove ads

    Men's amateur coefficient

    Summarize
    Perspective

    UEFA calculates coefficients for each association that takes part in the UEFA Regions' Cup. These coefficients are calculated to compile ranking lists that are used to determine the round in which each team enters the competition and to seed the teams for the draws. The coefficient ranking list is established for the preliminary and intermediate round draws on the basis of the associations’ results in the three most recent completed seasons at the time of the draws. For the 2022–23 competition, the coefficient ranking list is therefore based on the associations' results in the seasons 2014–15, 2016–17 and 2018–19.[36]

    As of 8 December 2021 the coefficients are as follows:[37]

    More information Rank, Member association ...

    Points are awarded for each match played in the qualifying competition. Match points are awarded in accordance with the final scores as ratified by UEFA. Final tournament matches and penalty shoot-outs are not taken into consideration. In addition to the match points, the bonus points are awarded for each season.The points are given as follows:[36]

    More information Round, Points awarded ...
    Remove ads

    Futsal tournaments' coefficient

    Summarize
    Perspective

    Men's national team

    Since 2020 FIFA Futsal World Cup qualification, the UEFA coefficients are based on the Elo rating system and are constantly updated to all non-friendly matches.[38] This ranking is used to seed national teams on UEFA competitions and to decide the number of clubs from an association that will participate in the UEFA Futsal Champions League. The rating below is the situation after the UEFA Futsal Euro 2022 qualifications have been played:

    More information Team, Coeff. ...

    Women's national team

    2020 ranking

    The coefficients from 2020 used for the seeding and pot placements in the draw for UEFA Women's Futsal Euro 2022, were based on results on 2019 edition.[39]

    More information Team, Coeff. ...

    Men's futsal club coefficient

    The club coefficient, used to determine seeds and entrance round on the UEFA Futsal Champions League, is the sum of the points earned by the club in that competition on the previous three seasons and 50% of the club's association coefficient over the same period. The association coefficient is the sum of the points earned by all the clubs of the association. Even though all calculation procedures are public for association and club coefficients, UEFA only publishes the coefficients of the clubs competing in the next season of UEFA Futsal Champions League.[40]

    More information Round, Points awarded ...

    The coefficients for the top 16 teams competing on 2022–23 UEFA Futsal Champions League are as follows:[41]

    More information Rank, Team ...
    Remove ads

    Youth tournaments' coefficient

    UEFA Under-19

    More information Team, Coeff ...

    UEFA Under-17

    More information Team, Coeff ...

    UEFA Women's Under-19

    More information Team, Coeff ...

    UEFA Women's Under-17

    More information Team, Coeff ...

    Futsal Club's (Nation)

    More information Rank, Association ...

    Youth Club's (Club)

    Remove ads

    Criticisms

    The UEFA coefficient system has been criticised for being likely to preserve the status quo for rankings and seedings, as well as for favouring teams from stronger leagues.[42]

    See also

    References

    Loading content...

    Sources

    Loading related searches...

    Wikiwand - on

    Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

    Remove ads