The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; ; ) is the governing body of football in Europe, uniting 55 national associations and overseeing the promotion, regulation and development of the sport across the continent. It runs many of the worldâÂÂs leading football competitions, such as the Champions League, the Women's Champions League, the European Championship and the Women's European Championship, and reinvests 97.5% of its net revenue back into the game to ensure long-term sustainability and growth.
UEFA works closely with its member national associations, leagues, clubs, playersâ unions, supporters and European institutions, such as the European Commission, to safeguard the integrity of football and maintain its role as a unifying force. The organisation is headquartered in Nyon, Switzerland.
UEFA is one of the continental confederations within global footballâÂÂs governance structure and forms part of the wider ecosystem under FIFA, the world governing body, with which it cooperates on regulatory, competitive and development matters. It also works directly alongside the five other confederations to further develop the game around the world, through the UEFA Together programme.
UEFA was founded on 15 June 1954 in Basel, Switzerland, after several European national associations sought to strengthen cooperation in football following the Second World War. Associations aimed to expand international play, develop refereeing and coaching, and take advantage of emerging broadcast technologies. A pioneering trio â Ottorino Barassi, José Crahay and Henri Delaunay â played key roles in shaping the organisationâÂÂs creation and advancing a unified European football structure.
Soon after, UEFA launched its first major competitions: the European Champion Clubsâ Cup in 1955 and the European Championship in 1958, both destined to become central pillars of European and global football.
Over the decades, UEFA has expanded to 55 member associations and broadened its remit beyond competitions to include governance, development, social responsibility and sustainability.
UEFA organises many of football's premier competitions, including the UEFA EURO, UEFA Women's EURO, UEFA Champions League, UEFA WomenâÂÂs Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and the UEFA Youth League, alongside major futsal and youth tournaments. These competitions set benchmarks for sporting quality and global reach, defining the competitive landscape of European football.
The organisation also upholds regulatory standards â such as financial sustainability and club licensing â to ensure integrity, stability and fairness across all competitions.
UEFA reinvests 97.5% of its net revenue into football development to strengthen grassroots initiatives, coaching, refereeing, facilities and infrastructure, youth pathways and long-term association capacities across Europe.
UEFA promotes solidarity and ensures that all 55 of its member associations benefit from development funding and initiatives. This work is further supported by providing accessible education, governance insights and extensive coverage of the game.
UEFA increasingly integrates sustainability into its wider mission, using the reach and influence of football as a force for social and environmental good. Its programmes focus on inclusion, equality, community impact and responsible governance, extending the organisationâÂÂs influence beyond the pitch.
The UEFA Foundation for Children contributes significantly to this vision by using football to support vulnerable children around the world, promoting education, inclusion and opportunities for a better future.
The UEFA executive committee comprises the UEFA president and up to 19 other members: 16 elected by the UEFA Congress (including at least two female members), two by European Football Clubs and one by the European Leagues. All members hold the same rights and duties
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General secretary
FIFA Council â European members
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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.
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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 UEFAâÂÂCAF 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.
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 1âÂÂ4 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 2021âÂÂ2022.
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 2025âÂÂ26. In December 2024, the name of the competition, "UEFA Women's Europa Cup", was announced.
Legend
For each tournament, the flag of the host country and the number of teams in each finals tournament (in brackets) are shown.
Dissatisfied fans across Europe have referred to the organisation as UEFA mafia, including in Russia's top league, in Bulgaria's top league, and in a Champions League group stage match held in Sweden. The term has also been covered for its use outside of stadiums, for example during a protest in Kosovo outside an EU building following the Serbia v Albania (UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying) match. F.C. Copenhagen supporters displayed banners around the city, with slogans such as "UEFA MAFIA â THE PANDEMIC OF FOOTBALL", when UEFA ordered their 2019âÂÂ20 Europa League round of 16 return leg be played behind closed doors, despite reduced capacity being allowed by the Danish government.
Following the 2015 FIFA corruption case, the then-president of UEFA, Michel Platini, was also involved in the case. Swiss prosecutors accused FIFA president Sepp Blatter of making a "disloyal payment" of $2m (ã1.6m) to Mr Platini. Swiss attorney general, , stated: "We didn't interview Mr Platini as a witness, that's not true. We investigated against him in between as a witness and an accused person". Both Platini and Sepp Blatter were banned from football-related activity. Platini appealed to Court of Arbitration for Sports, which lowered the six-year ban to four years. He further appealed to Swiss courts and the European Court of Human Rights but the courts rejected his appeals.
In 2019 UEFA's decision to host Europa League Cup final in Baku, Azerbaijan left one of the finalists, Arsenal, with a decision to withdraw their Armenian player Henrikh Mkhitaryan out of the competition due to safety concerns, and there has been long-standing debates about the extent to which the elite clubs or UEFA itself should exert the most influence on the game. UEFA's decision to partner with blockchain company Chiliz in February 2022 was criticised and described as 'incomprehensible' by fan groups across Europe.
In July 2025, UEFA sanctioned Crystal Palace F.C. and Olympique Lyonnais for breaching its multi-club ownership rules, due to overlapping ownership by John Textor's Eagle Football Group. Palace, who had qualified for the UEFA Europa League as FA Cup winners, were instead placed in the UEFA Europa Conference League, while Lyon retained the Europa League spot. The Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected Palace's appeal in August 2025.
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