37 – New competition will promote more competitive national team football matches.
UEFA today confirmed the final competition rules and regulations for the UEFA Nations League, less than a year before the first match is played on 6 September 2018. The new logo for the tournament was also unveiled following the UEFA Executive Committee meeting in Nyon.
This new national team competition aims to ensure the continued success of national team football by replacing most friendlies with competitive matches and by allowing all nations to play against equally ranked teams.
The format of the UEFA Nations League will feature promotion and relegation and see the 55 European national teams divided into four leagues in accordance with UEFA’s national association coefficient rankings on 11 October 2017. League A will include the top-ranked sides and League D will include the lowest.
Each league will be sub-divided into four groups of three or four teams, and teams will play each other home and away between September and November 2018, thus playing four to six matches within the dates already foreseen by the international match calendar.
The group winners will gain promotion and those who finish bottom will be relegated.
The four group winners of League A will qualify for the UEFA Nations League Finals, to be played in June 2019, with two semi-finals, a third-place match and the final. One host country will be appointed by the UEFA Executive Committee in December 2018 from among the finalist teams.
National teams will thus either be competing to become UEFA Nations League winners, or be fighting for promotion and to avoid relegation.
The League Phase Draw for the UEFA Nations League will take place at the SwissTech Convention Centre in Lausanne on 24 January 2018, when the new UEFA Nations League trophy will also be unveiled.
