UEFA

Infobox Organization
name = Union of European Football Associations

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caption =
type = Sports organisation
membership = 53 national associations
formation = 15 June 1954

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mcaption = UEFA member associations are in green
headquarters = Nyon, Switzerland
leader_title = President
leader_name = Michel Platini
website = http://www.uefa.com/
language = English, German, FrenchThe Union of European Football Associations ( _fr. Union des associations européennes de football) is the administrative and controlling body for European football. It is almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA (usually pronEng|juˈeɪ̪fə).

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 one of 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, Germany, Italy and Spain. 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 FAs. 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.

In futsal there is the UEFA Futsal Championship.

Club

UEFA also runs the two main club competitions in Europe: the UEFA Champions League was first held in 1955, and was known as the European Champion Clubs Cup (or just European Cup) until 1991; and the 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 cite web | url=http://www.uefa.com/competitions/supercup/news/kind=32/newsid=447085.html | title=List of European official clubs' cups and tournaments | work=uefa.com | accessdate=21 August| accessyear=2006] ). 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 Cup (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 European official competition by UEFA in 1995 as a qualifying competition for the UEFA Cup. The last Intertoto Cup took place in 2008. Recently, UEFA launched the UEFA Regions Cup, for semi-professional teams. UEFA also conducts the UEFA Women's Cup for women's club teams.

In futsal there is the UEFA Futsal Cup.

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

The UEFA Plaque

Only three teams (Ajax, Bayern Munich and Juventus) have won each of the three main competitions (European Cup-UEFA Champions League, UEFA Cup Winner's Cup and UEFA Cup) , a feat that is no longer possible for any team that did not win the Cup Winners' Cup. 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 Cup 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 in 1987 it cite web | url=http://archiviostorico.gazzetta.it/1997/maggio/24/Tutto_inizio_con_poesia_ga_0_9705246555.shtml| title=All start 'with a little' poetry | work=Gazzetta dello Sport's Historical Archive | accessdate=24 May | accessyear=1997] .

UEFA World Cup Participation and Results

The following UEFA members have competed in the following FIFA World Cups. Teams are sorted by number of appearances.

;Legend
*1st – Champions
*2nd – Runners-up
*3rd – Third place
*4th – Fourth place
*SF – Semifinals (only in 1930, when no third-place match was held)There was no official World Cup Third Place match in 1930; The USA and Yugoslavia lost in the semi-finals. Currently, FIFA recognizes [http://www.fifa.com/associations/association=usa/countryInfo.html USA] as the third-placed team and [http://www.fifa.com/associations/association=srb/countryInfo.html Yugoslavia] as the fourth-placed team, using the overall records of the teams in the [http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/edition=1/index.html 1930 FIFA World Cup] .]
*QF – Quarterfinals (1934–1938, 1954–1970, and since 1986: knockout round of 8; 1974–1978, second group stage, final 8)
*R2 – Round 2 (1982: second group stage, final 12; since 1986: knockout round of 16)
*R1 – Round 1

¹ " Made 10 appearances as flagicon|FRGWest Germany⁺ from 1950 to 1990"
² " Made 8 appearances as fb|SFR Yugoslavia⁺ from 1930 to 1990, 1 as flagicon|SCG Yugoslavia FR⁺ from 1994 to 2002, and 1 as flagicon|SCG Serbia & Montenegro⁺ in 2006"
³ " Made 8 appearances as fb|TCH⁺ from 1930 to 1994"
⁴ " Made 7 appearances as fb|URS⁺ from 1930 to 1990"
^† " Was part of fb|SFR Yugoslavia⁺ from 1930 to 1990"
^‡ " Was part of fb|URS⁺ from 1930 to 1990"
"* Israel qualified as a member of AFC"
⁺ " team and national federation no longer exist"

*NOTE: FIFA considers Germany to carry West Germany's record; Serbia to carry Serbia and Montenegro, Yugoslavia FR, and Yugoslavia's records; Czech Republic to carry Czechoslovakia's record; and Russia to carry USSR's record. [PDFlink| [http://www.fifa.com/infoplus/IP-201_08A_FWC-alltimeranking.pdf alltime ranking of worldcup participants] www.fifa.com, February, 5th, 2007]
*Montenegro applied for membership in UEFA and FIFA on 30 June 2006, was admitted to UEFA on 26 January 2007, and was admitted to FIFA on 31 May 2007.

Women's Qualifiers [http://www.uefa.com/competitions/wowc/Standings/index.html]

See also

*UEFA Club Football Awards
*UEFA coefficients
*UEFA Golden Jubilee Poll
*UEFA Jubilee Awards
*UEFA Stadia List
*UEFA competition records
*UEFA Celebration Match
*UEFA Champions League
*UEFA Cup
*UEFA Europa League [http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/26/sports/SOC-UEFA-Europa-League.php]
*UEFA Super Cup
*UEFA Cup Winners' Cup
*UEFA Intertoto Cup
*UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship
*UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship
*UEFA European Under-17 Football Championship
*UEFA Women's Cup
*UEFA Women's Championship
*UEFA Women's Under-19 Championship
*UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship
*UEFA Regions Cup

References

External links

* [http://www.uefa.com/ UEFA homepage]
* [http://www.uefa.tv Unofficial UEFA web page, with free comments and criticisms on the organization, etc, in www.uefa.tv]