2025–26 UEFA Women's Nations League

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2025–26 UEFA Women's Nations League
Tournament details
DatesLeague phase:
February – October 2025
Nations League Finals and
promotion/relegation matches
February 2026
Teams51
2027–28 →
All statistics correct as of 18 July 2024.

The 2025–26 UEFA Women's Nations League will be the second season of the UEFA Women's Nations League, an international women's football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the member associations of UEFA. The league phase of the competition will be played between September and December 2025, with the finals tournament taking place in February 2026. The results also determines the leagues for the FIFA Women's World Cup 2027 qualifying competition.

Format

The competition will begin with the league stage, featuring the national teams split into three leagues (A, B, and C) based on the UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying ranking.[1] Leagues A and B features 16 teams in four groups of four teams, while League C consists of the remaining competition entrants split into groups of three or four teams.

The teams in each group plays against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The four group winners of League A advances to the Nations League Finals, which features single-leg semi-finals, a third-place play-off, and final. An open draw determines the pairings and home teams for the semi-final matches, as well as which semi-final will have its teams host the third-place play-off and final.

In addition, the competition features promotion and relegation, taking effect in FIFA Women's World Cup 2027 qualifying (which uses an identical league structure). The group winners of Leagues B and C are automatically promoted, while the fourth-placed teams in Leagues A and B, as well as the lowest-ranked third-placed team in League B, are automatically relegated. Promotion/relegation matches will also held on a home-and-away basis, taking place in parallel with the Nations League Finals, to determine which teams would promoted, relegated or remain in their respective leagues. The third-placed teams of League A plays the runners-up of League B, while the three best-ranked third-placed teams in League B plays the three best-ranked League C runners-up.[2] The teams from the higher leagues are seeded, and plays the second leg at home. In the two-legged ties, the team that scored more goals on aggregate is the winner. If the aggregate score was level, extra time will be played (the away goals rule was not applied). If the score remained level after extra time, a penalty shoot-out will be used to decide the winner.[3]

Tiebreakers for group ranking

If two or more teams in the same group are equal on points on completion of the league phase, the following tie-breaking criteria are applied:[4]

  1. Higher number of points obtained in the matches played among the teams in question;
  2. Superior goal difference in matches played among the teams in question;
  3. Higher number of goals scored in the matches played among the teams in question;
  4. If, after having applied criteria 1 to 3, teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the teams in question to determine their final rankings.[a] If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 11 apply;
  5. Superior goal difference in all group matches;
  6. Higher number of goals scored in all group matches;
  7. Higher number of away goals scored in all group matches;
  8. Higher number of wins in all group matches;
  9. Higher number of away wins in all group matches;
  10. Lower disciplinary points total in all group matches (1 point for a single yellow card, 3 points for a red card as a consequence of two yellow cards, 3 points for a direct red card, 4 points for a yellow card followed by a direct red card).
  11. Position in the UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying ranking.[1]

Seeding

Teams league positions:
  League A
  League B
  League C
  Team banned from competition

Russia are not permitted to enter the competition, as Russian teams are suspended indefinitely from UEFA and FIFA competitions since 28 February 2022 due to their country's invasion of Ukraine.[5]

For political reasons, Armenia and Azerbaijan (due to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict), as well as Belarus and Ukraine (due to the Belarusian involvement in the Russian invasion of Ukraine), could not be drawn in the same group. Due to winter venue restrictions, a group could contain a maximum of two of Sweden, Norway, and Iceland in League A, and two of Estonia, the Faroe Islands, Latvia, and Lithuania in League C.

Key
Rise Promoted after UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying league phase
Fall Relegated after UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying league phase
League A
Pot Team Prv Rank
1  Spain 1
 Germany 2
 France 3
 Italy 4
2  Iceland 5
 England 6
 Denmark 7
 Netherlands 8
3  Sweden 9
 Norway 10
 Austria 11
 Belgium 12
4  Portugal Rise 17
 Scotland Rise 18
 Switzerland Rise 19
 Wales Rise 20
League B
Pot Team Prv Rank
1  Finland Fall 13
 Czech Republic Fall 14
 Republic of Ireland Fall 15
 Poland Fall 16
2  Serbia 21
 Ukraine 22
 Northern Ireland 23
 Turkey 24
3  Croatia 25
 Hungary 26
 Bosnia and Herzegovina 27
 Slovenia Rise 33
4  Romania Rise 34
 Belarus Rise 35
 Albania Rise 36
 Greece Rise 37
League C
Pot Team Prv Rank
1  Slovakia Fall 28
 Azerbaijan Fall 29
 Malta Fall 30
 Israel Fall 31
 Kosovo Fall 32
2  Montenegro 38
 Luxembourg 39
 Georgia 40
 Bulgaria 41
 Latvia 42
3  Faroe Islands 43
 Armenia 44
 North Macedonia 45
 Estonia 46
 Lithuania 47
4  Kazakhstan 48
 Moldova 49
 Cyprus 50
 Andorra 51

Notes

  1. ^ When there are two or more teams tied in points, criteria 1 to 3 are applied. After these criteria are applied, they may define the position of some of the teams involved, but not all of them. For example, if there is a three-way tie on points, the application of the first three criteria may only break the tie for one of the teams, leaving the other two teams still tied. In this case, the tiebreaking procedure is resumed, from the beginning, for those teams that are still tied.

References

  1. ^ a b "Women's European Qualifiers 2024 Overall League Rankings" (PDF).
  2. ^ "How will the new UEFA women's national team competition system work?". UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. 3 November 2022. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
  3. ^ "Regulations of the UEFA European Women's Championship including UEFA Nations League and European Qualifiers". UEFA. 7 February 2023. Archived (PDF) from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  4. ^ "Regulations of the UEFA European Women's Championship including UEFA Nations League and European Qualifiers". UEFA. 7 February 2023. Archived (PDF) from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  5. ^ "FIFA/UEFA suspend Russian clubs and national teams from all competitions". UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. 28 February 2022. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
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