UEFA

History and membership

UEFA was officially inaugurated on 15 June 1954 in Basel, Switzerland, after consultation between the Italian, French, and Belgian associations. At the founding meeting, 25 members were present. However, six other associations which were not present were still recognised as founding members, bringing the total of founding associations to 31. UEFA grew to more than 50 members by the mid-1990s, as new associations were born out of the fragmentation of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia into their constituent states. UEFA's main headquarters after its foundation were located in Paris, but moved to Bern in 1960. Finally, they moved to Nyon, Switzerland, in 1995, opening the organisation's current headquarters in 1999.

Current members

UEFA membership coincides for the most part with recognition as a sovereign country in Europe (48 out of 55 members are sovereign UN member states), although there are some exceptions. One UN member state (Monaco) and one UN General Assembly non-member observer state (Vatican City) are not members. Some UEFA members are not sovereign states, but form part of a larger recognised sovereign state in the context of international law. These include England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales (UK constituent countries), Gibraltar (UK overseas territory), Faroe Islands (Danish Realm), and Kosovo (state with limited recognition), however, in the context of these countries, government functions concerning sport tend to be carried at the territorial level coterminous with the UEFA member entity. UEFA have previously declined membership to those deemed as non-sovereign countries like Jersey.

Some UEFA members are transcontinental states (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkey) and others are considered part of Europe both culturally and politically (Turkey, Cyprus and Armenia). Countries which had been members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) were also admitted to the European football association, such as Israel (because it had been banned from the AFC group in 1974) and Kazakhstan. Involving clubs, some UEFA member associations allow teams from outside their association's main territory to take part in their "domestic" competition, for example, AS Monaco in the French League, various Welsh clubs in the English leagues, English-based The New Saints in the Welsh League, or Derry City, situated in Northern Ireland, plays in the Republic of Ireland-based League of Ireland.

On 28 February 2022, due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and in accordance with a recommendation by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the UEFA suspended the participation of Russia. The Russian Football Union unsuccessfully appealed the UEFA ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which upheld the ban. On 26 September 2023 the ban was lifted for the Russia U-17 team enabling them to complete in the 2024 Euro U-17 with UEFA saying "by banning children from our competitions, we not only fail to recognise and uphold a fundamental right for their holistic development but we directly discriminate against them". The lifting of the ban also applied to all teams, men and women, of underage players. This was rejected by the FA of Ukraine, England, and Sweden, with all three threatening to boycott matches against Russia.

Europe's Big Five

Five of the UEFA national teams, Germany, Italy, France, England and Spain, have won 12 out of 22 FIFA World Cups for Europe. These five nations also make up the so-called "Europe's Big Five", consisting of Spain's La Liga, England's Premier League, Germany's Bundesliga, Italy's Serie A and France's Ligue 1.

Executive committee

UEFA executive committee is composed of;

President

• SVN Aleksander Čeferin

Vice-presidents

• SWE Karl-Erik Nilsson – First Vice-president
• ALB Armand Duka
• GER Hans-Joachim Watzke
• DEN Jesper Møller
• ITA Gabriele Gravina
• WAL Laura McAllister

Members

• CZE Petr Fousek
• FRA Philippe Diallo
• GEO Levan Kobiashvili
• GER Karl-Heinz Rummenigge
• NOR Lise Klaveness
• CRO Marijan Kustić
• FIN Ari Lahti
• ESP Rafael Louzán Abal
• ARM Armen Melikbekyan
• NED Frank Paauw
• ISR Moshe Zuares
• EST Aivar Pohlak
• SUI Claudius Schäfer
• ESP Miguel Ángel Gil Marín
• QAT Nasser Al-Khelaifi General secretary
• GRE Theodore Theodoridis
• SUI Michele Centenaro

Deputy general secretary

• ITA Giorgio Marchetti

Associate deputy general secretary

• GER Michael Heselschwerdt

Treasurer

• HUN Sándor Csányi

Associate treasurer

• Austria Friedrich Stickler

Head of club competitions

• USATom Barlow

Head of national competitions

• GER Tobias Hedtstück

List of UEFA office holders

;List of presidents of UEFA Main article: List of presidents of UEFA

;List of secretaries general of UEFA

Members

Aspiring future members

• : In December 2015, an application was submitted to UEFA to allow Jersey to take part in international matches, following on from Gibraltar's admission two years earlier. In October 2016, Jersey's bid to join UEFA was rejected, but this decision was appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in June 2017. In September 2017, the CAS ordered the UEFA Congress to hear Jersey's case. In February 2018 a majority of the member associations of UEFA voted against admitting Jersey as a member.

Former members

Competitions

Main article: UEFA competitions

UEFA continental competitions

National teams: ;Men

• UEFA European Championship
• UEFA Nations League
• UEFA European Under-21 Championship
• UEFA European Under-19 Championship
• UEFA European Under-17 Championship
• UEFA Futsal Championship
• UEFA Under-19 Futsal Championship ;Women
• UEFA Women's Championship
• UEFA Women's Nations League
• UEFA Women's Under-19 Championship
• UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship
• UEFA Women's Futsal Championship Clubs: ;Men
• UEFA Champions League
• UEFA Europa League
• UEFA Conference League
• UEFA Super Cup
• UEFA Youth League
• UEFA Futsal Champions League ;Women
• UEFA Women's Champions League
• UEFA Women's Europa Cup Amateur:
• UEFA Regions' Cup Defunct National teams: ;Men
• UEFA Under-21 Futsal Tournament Clubs: ;Men
• UEFA Cup Winners' Cup
• UEFA Intertoto Cup Amateur: ;Men
• UEFA Amateur Cup

UEFA runs official international competitions in Europe and some countries of Northern, Southwestern and Central Asia for national teams and professional clubs, known as UEFA competitions, some of which are regarded as the world's most prestigious tournaments.

UEFA is the organiser of two of the most prestigious competitions in international football: The UEFA European Championship and the UEFA Nations League. The main competition for men's national teams is the UEFA European Championship (also known as the Euro), which started in 1958, with the first finals in 1960, and was known as the European Nations Cup until 1964. The UEFA Nations League is the second tournament of UEFA and was introduced in 2018. The tournament largely replaced the international friendly matches previously played on the FIFA International Match Calendar. It will be played every two years.

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 as well as Women's Under-19 and Women's Under-17 Championships.

World, Olympic and intercontinental competitions

Intercontinental national teams:

• CONMEBOL–UEFA Cup of Champions
• Women's Finalissima
• Futsal Finalissima Defunct
• UEFA–CAF Meridian Cup Intercontinental clubs:
• UEFA–CONMEBOL Club Challenge
• Under-20 Intercontinental Cup Defunct
• Intercontinental Champions' Supercup
• Intercontinental Cup

Beside continental European competitions for national and their junior teams, the UEFA organizes various qualification male and female tournaments among European national and their junior teams for World Cups (organized by FIFA) and Olympics (organized by IOC).

UEFA also organised the UEFA–CAF Meridian Cup with CAF for youth teams in an effort to boost youth football. UEFA launched the UEFA Regions' Cup, for semi-professional teams representing their local region, in 1999. In futsal there is the UEFA Futsal Championship and UEFA Under-19 Futsal Championship. Despite the existence of UEFA's Futsal and Beach soccer committee, UEFA does not organise any beach soccer competitions. International and club beach soccer competitions for UEFA members are organised externally by Beach Soccer Worldwide.

The Italian, German, Spanish, French and Russian men's national teams are the only teams to have won the European football championship in all categories.

Club

The top-ranked UEFA competition is the UEFA Champions League, which started in 1955 as the European Champion Clubs' Cup (or simply the European Cup) and initially only gathered the top team of each country; this competition has since been expanded to gather the top 1–4 teams of each country's league (the number of teams depend on that country's ranking and can be upgraded or downgraded).

A second, lower-ranked competition is the UEFA Europa League. This competition, for national knockout cup winners and high-placed league teams, was launched by UEFA in 1971 as a successor of both the former UEFA Cup and the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (also began in 1955). A third competition, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, which started in 1960, was absorbed into the UEFA Cup (now UEFA Europa League) in 1999.

In December 2018, UEFA announced the creation of a third club competition, later named the UEFA Europa Conference League. The competition features 32 teams in 8 groups of 4, with a knockout round between the second placed teams in Europa Conference League and the third placed teams in the Europa League, leading to a final 16 knockout stage featuring the eight group winners. The first edition of the competition was played in 2021–2022.

In women's football UEFA also conducts the UEFA Women's Champions League for club teams. The competition was first held in 2001, and was known as the UEFA Women's Cup until 2009.

The UEFA Super Cup pits the winners of the Champions League against the winners of the Europa League (previously the winners of the Cup Winners' Cup), and 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 recognised as official UEFA club competition by UEFA in 1995. The last Intertoto Cup took place in 2008.

The European/South American Cup was jointly organised with CONMEBOL between the Champions League and the Copa Libertadores winners.

Only five teams (Juventus, Ajax, Manchester United, Bayern Munich and Chelsea) have won each of the three main competitions (European Cup/UEFA Champions League, European Cup Winners' Cup/UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League), a feat that is no longer possible for any team that did not win the Cup Winners' Cup. There are currently eight teams throughout Europe that have won two of the three trophies; all but one have won the Cup Winners' Cup, four require a win in the Champions League and four require a UEFA Europa League win.

Until the first staging of the UEFA Europa Conference League in 2022, Juventus of Italy was the only team in Europe to win all UEFA's official championships and cups and, in commemoration of achieving that feat, have received The UEFA Plaque by the Union of European Football Associations on 12 July 1988.

UEFA's premier futsal competition is the UEFA Futsal Cup, a tournament started in 2001 which replaced the former Futsal European Clubs Championship. This event, despite enjoying a long and well-established tradition in the European futsal community, dating back to 1984, was never recognised as official by UEFA.

There was an attempt to create a Europa League-style second tier women's club competition, which had been in discussion since 2021. In December 2023, the attempt came into a fruition, with the first edition of the competition to be played in 2025–26. In December 2024, the name of the competition, "UEFA Women's Europa Cup", was announced.

Current title holders

Titles by nation

Main article: UEFA club competition records and statistics

Sponsors

;UEFA national team competitions

• Adidas
• Alipay
• Atos
• Carlsberg Group
• Engelbert Strauss
• Hisense
• Visit Qatar

;UEFA Champions League ;;Global sponsors

• Bet365
• Crypto.com
• FedEx
• Heineken
• Just Eat Takeaway.com
• Mastercard
• PlayStation
• PepsiCo (Pepsi/Lay's)
• Qatar Airways ;;Suppliers and enhanced partners
• Adidas
• EA Sports
• JoyBuy
• Oppo
• Topps Note: The UEFA Champions League sponsors are also sponsors of the UEFA Super Cup and the UEFA Youth League.

;UEFA Europa League ;;Global sponsors

• Betano
• Engelbert Strauss
• Enterprise Rent-A-Car
• FlixBus
• Hankook
• Lidl
• Just Eat Takeaway.com
• Swissquote ;;Suppliers
• Decathlon Note: The UEFA Europa League sponsors are also sponsors of the UEFA Conference League.

;UEFA women's football competitions

• Adidas
• Amazon
• Frito-Lay (Lay's)
• Vodafone

FIFA World Rankings

Overview

Team of the Year

Major tournament records

Legend

• **** – Champions
• **** – Runners-up
• **** – Third place
• **** – Fourth place
• QF – Quarter-finals (1934–1938, 1954–1970, and 1986–present: knockout round of 8)
• R3 – Round 3 (2026–present: knockout round of 16)
• R2 – Round 2 (1974–1978: second group stage, top 8; 1982: second group stage, top 12; 1986–2022: knockout round of 16; 2026–present: knockout round of 32)
• R1 – Round 1 (1930, 1950–1970 and 1986–present: group stage; 1934–1938: knockout round of 16; 1974–1982: first group stage)
• Q — Qualified for upcoming tournament
• – Qualified but withdrew
• – Did not qualify
• – Did not enter / Withdrew / Banned
• – Hosts

For each tournament, the flag of the host country and the number of teams in each finals tournament (in brackets) are shown.

FIFA World Cup

Main article: National team appearances in the FIFA World Cup

FIFA Women's World Cup

Main article: FIFA Women's World Cup records and statistics

Olympic Games

Men's tournament

Women's tournament