UEFA coefficient
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, 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:
- National team coefficient: used during 1997–2017 to rank List of men's national [association football teams|national teams], for seeding in the UEFA Euro qualifying and finals tournaments. UEFA decided after 2017, instead to seed national teams based on the:
- * Overall ranking of the biennial UEFA Nations League for the seeded draw of groups in the UEFA Euro qualification stage.
- * Overall ranking of the UEFA Euro qualification stage for the seeded draw of groups in the UEFA Euro final tournament.
- Association coefficient: used to rank the collective performance of the clubs of each member association, for assigning the number of places, and at what stage clubs enter the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and the UEFA Conference League.
- Club coefficient : used to rank individual clubs, for seeding in the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Conference League. For the expanded format of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, UEFA has used a mixed style of seeding for the competition, with the winners of the List of European Cup and [UEFA Champions League finals|2021–2024 Champions League] each receiving a place and the other 8 teams being chosen based on their UEFA Club Coefficient.
Men's association coefficient
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 UEFA season. This is unrelated to the selection of teams which will fill each allocation through the individual association leagues and national cups.
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. 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.
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:
Bonus Points
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 2021–22 to 2025–26, with the 2025–26 season underway. The final ranking at the end of the 2025–26 season will be used to determine the minimum number of places for each association in the 2027–28 UEFA club competitions.The two highest annual coefficients from the 2023–24 season and onward are used to determine two additional European Performance Spots 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 29 January 2026, the coefficients are as follows:
'''Notes'''
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 of the Welsh Cup, in the now defunct UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.
Distribution of team competition quotas
2024–27
The following is the default access list for the 2024–25 and future seasons. Rankings in table exclude Liechtenstein which receives one Europa or Conference League qualifying berth, depending on their ranking, for their cup winner.History
ImageSize = width:160 height:800
PlotArea = left:40 right:40 bottom:10 top:10
DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy
Period = from:01/01/1960 till:31/12/2025
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:01/01/1960
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical format:yyyy
Colors =
id:Germany value:rgb
id:England value:rgb
id:Italy value:rgb
id:Spain value:rgb
PlotData=
bar:Leaders width:25 mark: align:left fontsize:S
from:01/01/1960 till:31/12/1966 shift: text:"Spain" color:Spain
from:01/01/1967 till:31/12/1975 shift: text:"England" color:England
from:01/01/1976 till:31/12/1984 shift: text:"West Germany" color:Germany
from:01/01/1985 till:31/12/1985 shift: text:"England" color:England
from:01/01/1986 till:31/12/1989 shift: text:"Italy" color:Italy
from:01/01/1990 till:31/12/1990 shift: text:"Germany" color:Germany
from:01/01/1991 till:31/12/1999 shift: text:"Italy" color:Italy
from:01/01/2000 till:31/12/2007 shift: text:"Spain" color:Spain
from:01/01/2008 till:31/12/2012 shift: text:"England" color:England
from:01/01/2013 till:31/12/2020 shift: text:"Spain" color:Spain
from:01/01/2021 till:31/12/2025 shift: text:"England" color:England
Following the introduction of the UEFA Cup in 1971, the competition began to grow in complexity, with more clubs than either the European Champions Cup or the Cup Winners' Cup, reaching up to four from a single country. UEFA began to publish association rankings in 1979, to identify the number of participants from 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 calculation system, only four associations have ever been ranked as the top European association.
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. Having been top in 1985, England were unranked in 1990 and would not regain the top position until 2008.
Top associations by period
The following data indicates the three top-ranked associations in each five-year period. Data prior to 1975–1979 period has been calculated, but precedes the first published by the Confederation and has merely informative value. 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.| Years | 1st place | Coeff. | 2nd place | Coeff. | 3rd place | Coeff. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |1945Women's association coefficientCurrent rankingThe ranking below takes into account of each association's performance in European competitions from 2021–22 to 2025–26, with the 2025–26 season currently taking place.The final ranking at the end of the 2025–26 season will be used to determine the number of places for each association in the 2027–28 UEFA club competitions. As of 17 December 2025 the coefficients are as follows: '''Notes''' HistoryTop associations by periodThe following data indicates the three top-ranked women's associations in each five-year period.
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