The
Union of European Football Associations ( ) is
the administrative and controlling body for European
football. It is almost always referred
to by its acronym
UEFA (usually ).
UEFA represents the national football associations of
Europe, runs Europewide national and club
competitions, and controls the prize money, regulations and media
rights to those competitions. Several national football
associations which are geographically in
Asia
or
mostly in Asia belong to
UEFA rather than the
Asian
Football Confederation (AFC).
These nations are Armenia
, Georgia
, Kazakhstan
, Turkey
, Israel
, Cyprus
, Russia
and Azerbaijan
(Israel and Kazakhstan are former AFC
members). Cyprus chose to be
classed as a European football nation – it had the choice of
Europe, Asia or Africa.
UEFA is
the biggest of six continental confederations of FIFA
. Of
all the confederations, it is by far the strongest in terms of
wealth and influence over the global game. Virtually all of the
world's top players play in European leagues in part due to the
salaries available from the world's wealthiest football clubs,
particularly in
England,
Spain,
Italy and
Germany. Many of the world's
strongest national sides are in UEFA. Of the 32 available spots in
the
2006 FIFA World Cup, 14 were
allocated to UEFA national teams, and currently 14 of the top 20
teams in the
FIFA World Rankings
are UEFA members.
UEFA was
founded on 15 June 1954 in Basel
, Switzerland
following discussions between the French, Italian and Belgian FA. The headquarters was
in Paris until 1959 when the organization moved to Bern
.
Henri Delaunay was the first General
Secretary and
Ebbe Schwartz the
president.
Its administrative
center since 1995 is in Nyon
, Switzerland. It was initially made up of 25 national
associations. Currently there are 53 associations (see the bottom
of this page or
List
of UEFA national football teams).
UEFA, as a
representative of the national associations, has had a number of
bruising clashes with the European Commission
. In the 1990s the issues of television
rights and especially international transfers (the
Bosman ruling) have had to undergo some major
changes to remain in line with European law.
The current
UEFA
President is
Michel
Platini.
Competitions
Continental
The main competition for men's national teams is the
UEFA European Football
Championship, started in 1958, with the first finals in 1960,
and known as the European Nations Cup until 1964. UEFA also runs
national competitions at
Under-21,
Under-19 and
Under-17 levels. For women's
national teams, UEFA operates the
UEFA Women's Championship for
senior national sides and the
UEFA Women's Under-19
Championship at under-19 level, since 2008 there is a
UEFA Women's Under-17
Championship for under-17 sides.
UEFA also organizes the
UEFA-CAF
Meridian Cup with
CAF for youth teams.
UEFA launched the
UEFA Regions'
Cup, for semi-professional teams, in 1999.
In
futsal there is the
UEFA Futsal Championship and
UEFA Futsal Under-19
Championship.
Club
Association football
UEFA member countries by club
competition entry entitlements, 2007/8
UEFA also runs the two main club competitions in Europe (knowns as
UEFA club competitions): the
UEFA Champions League was first held
in 1955, and was known as the European Champion Clubs Cup (or just
European Cup) until 1992; and the
UEFA Europa League (former UEFA Cup), for
national knockout cup winners and high-placed league teams, was
launched by UEFA in 1971 as a successor to the
Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (also begun in
1955 but not recognized by UEFA ). A third competition, the
Cup Winners' Cup, started in
1960 and was absorbed into the UEFA Cup in 1999.
The
UEFA Super Cup, which pits
the winners of the Champions League against the winners of the UEFA
Europa League (previously the winners of the Cup Winners' Cup),
came into being in 1973 .
The
UEFA Intertoto Cup was a
summer competition, previously operated by several
Central European football associations,
which was relaunched and recognized as
official UEFA club competition
by UEFA in 1995 . The last Intertoto Cup took place in 2008. UEFA
also conducts the
UEFA
Women's Champions League for women's club teams, first held in
2001, and known as the UEFA Women's Cup until 2009.
The
UEFA/CONMEBOL
Intercontinental Cup was jointly organised with
CONMEBOL between the
Champions League and the
Copa Libertadores winners .
Only
three
teams (
Juventus,
Ajax and
Bayern
Munich) have
won each of the three main competitions (European Cup-UEFA
Champions League, UEFA Cup Winner's Cup and UEFA Cup/Europa
League), a feat that is no longer possible for any team that did
not win the Cup Winners' Cup (such as Real Madrid). There are
currently nine teams throughout Europe that have won two of the
three trophies; all have won the Cup Winners Cup, four require a
win in the Champions League and five require a UEFA Europa League
win.
Juventus is the only team in
Europe to win all
UEFA's official championships and
cups and, as the first side in the history of the European
football to have won the three major UEFA competitions, have
received
The UEFA Plaque by
the Union of European Football Associations on 12 July 1988.
Futsal
In futsal there is the
UEFA Futsal
Cup.
See also
UEFA competitions
| Clubs:
|
National teams:
|
Semi-professional:
|
UEFA resolutions
| Awards:
|
Qualifications:
|
Match:
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