UEFA Fair Play ranking

The UEFA Fair Play ranking is used by UEFA since 1995 to grant three berths for the first qualifying round of the UEFA Cup.

Old club qualification system

The highest finishing clubs in the national Fair Play rankings not yet participating in either the UEFA Champions League or the UEFA Cup were potential contenders for the three remaining berths. The club from the association which won the Fair Play ranking qualified automatically for the first qualifying round of the UEFA Cup. The two other teams were drawn out of the clubs from the associations that have reached the threshold of minimum games and had a score of at least 8.

New club qualification system

Following rule changes brought in for the UEFA Cup's replacement, the UEFA Europa League, there will be no draw for second and third places ^[1]. The three highest placed national associations in the UEFA Fair Play ranking will each automatically gain an extra qualification berth for the First Qualifying Round, providing they have exceeded the threshold of games played, and have a minimum average score of 8.0. These berths will then be allocated to the highest placed club in that association's own Fair Play league that has not yet qualified for either the UEFA Champions League or the UEFA Europa League.

Ranking

All representative teams from a football association are responsible for the score of the fair play ranking of that association. This includes match of all national teams and all clubs in all UEFA competitions. The ranking is composed from June 1 until May 31 the next year. The criteria for the ranking is of course Fair Play.

Criteria

Teams are judged on the following criteria:

• Yellow and Red cards: If no cards are shown the score will be 10. Every yellow card will deduct this total by 1. A red card will cost a team 3 points in the ranking. If the red card is the result of a second yellow card the deductions of the second yellow card will be ignored. But if a player gets a direct red card after he got a yellow card earlier, the yellow card will be counted as a deduction. This score could become negative.
• Positive play: For positive play a team can score a maximum of 10 point and a minimum of 1 point.
• Respect to the opponent: e.g. returning the ball to the opponent at a throw-in: maximum 5 points, minimum 1 point.
• Respect to the referee: maximum 5 points, minimum 1 point.
• Behaviour of the team officials: maximum 5 points, minimum 1 point.
• Behaviour of the fans: maximum of 5 point and a minimum of 1 point

NB: this criterion is ignored when the number of fans is negligible e.g. if there are no fans at all or because of penalty that was given by the UEFA.

The total number of points will be divided by the maximum number of points (40 or 35) and multiplied by 10 which will result in a score between 0 and 10.

UEFA Fair Play winners

Note:

• Beginning with European competitions that open in 2009, the second & third berths are no longer determined by a draw but are given to the associations occupying second & third in the UEFA Fair Play standings.
• Teams that performed the best in a given year when compared to the other two Fair Play qualifiers, are listed in italic. Meaning either by advancing further or earning more points.

Notes and references