UEFA Fair Play ranking

The UEFA Fair Play ranking is used by UEFA to grant three berths for the first qualifying round of the UEFA Cup. This ranking has existed since 1995, but awards in terms of extra berths for the first qualifying round have been given since 1999.

Clubs

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

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. For 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 two 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

Notes and references