European Qualification Rules for Southampton Fans

Edit (24 March 2015):  Now that all the English clubs are out of Europe we know that fourth place will qualify for the Champions League.
Edit (11 March 2015):  I missed a rule change since last year.  The top two English clubs to qualify for the Europa League (normally the FA Cup winner and the EPL fifth place team) now qualify directly for the group phase of the competition.  Also, because Chelsea won the League Cup, unless they completely collapse and finish in 7th place, the sixth place EPL club will qualify for the Europa League.  I have made some changes below which are in bold.

Edit (16 February 2015):  I have made some minor changes to clarify certain issues which were not 100% clear to me when I first wrote this.  The changes are indicated in bold.

There has been some confusion about what English teams need to do to qualify for European competition.  There have also been some changes in the rules in the past year.  I have tried to pull this information together from various sources, but I am not 100 percent sure I am right about everything.  If anyone notices a mistake, please let me know.  My sources are here, here, here, here, and here. 

Please note that I am not confidently expressing a belief that we will qualify for Europe and all this will matter.  I am merely explaining things because they will likely be of some interest over the next couple of months at least.  Certainly, this will explain why we wanted Chelsea to win the League Cup and why we now want Arsenal or Liverpool to win the FA Cup.

COUNTRY COEFFICIENTS

UEFA uses a complicated coefficient ranking system to determine the relative ranking of each member nation.  That ranking is based upon the performance of that nation’s clubs in European competition over the past five years.  Each club receives points based upon winning and drawing games and progressing in the competition.  The nation’s coefficient for each year is based upon the average score for each club participating in European competition.  Thus, Hull’s early elimination hurts England for the next five years. The current national rankings are found here. 

BASIC CHAMPION'S LEAGUE QUALIFICATION

Currently, England is the second ranked nation behind Spain and ahead of Germany.  All three of these nations are well ahead of Italy who is in fourth.  That is important because only the top three nations qualify four teams for the Champion's League.  England also qualifies three teams for the Europa League.  Two additional English teams can qualify under unusual circumstances which I will discuss later.

The four English Champions League qualifying teams are the top four teams in the Premier League.  The top three qualify directly for the group stage.  The fourth place team qualifies for the last round of playoffs. 

BASIC EUROPA LEAGUE QUALIFICATION

Three English teams qualify for the Europa League.  Normally, they are the winner of the FA Cup, the winner of the League Cup, and the fifth place team in the Premier League.  Normally, the FA Cup winner qualifies directly for the group stage.  The fifth place team now also qualifies for the group stage.  The League Cup winner qualifies for the third qualifying round.

However, if the FA Cup winner qualified for the Champions League, the runner up for the FA cup used to qualify instead.  However, this has changed.  A circular from the Spanish Football Federation explaining things can be found here.  The runner up used to qualify for the third qualifying round, bumping the other two clubs up one slot.  This is how Hull qualified last season.  If the FA Cup runner up had already qualified for European competition, then the sixth or, if necessary, the seventh place team in the Premier League qualifies instead.

Since the runner up no longer qualifies, then the sixth (or seventh) place team in the Premier League would qualify instead.  Chelsea's win in the League Cup means that the seventh place club will almost certainly qualify if Arsenal or Liverpool win the FA cup--unless the winner of the FA Cup drops to eighth place.

If the League Cup winner has already qualified for European competition, the sixth place or, if necessary, the seventh place team in the Premier League qualifies instead.  I believe that the order of priority for favorable places goes FA Cup winner, fifth place team, League Cup winner, sixth place team, [deletion], and seventh place team.

COMPLICATIONS

The three national associations with the best rankings under UEFA’s Respect Fair Play Assessment system each qualify an additional club for the Europa League.  The club is chosen based upon the national association’s top division’s fair play table.  If the team that tops that table has already qualified for European competition, the next ranked team qualifies, and so forth.  These teams enter the competition at the first qualifying round which means they need to win four home and away competitions to get into the group stage.  Any such team would have to play 23 games to win the title and their season would start in the first week of July, if not at the end of June.

The prior season’s Champion’s League champion automatically qualifies for the group stage of the Champion’s League.  It used to be that this qualification could bump the fourth place team, if the title holder did not qualify for the Champion’s League based upon league position.  This is what Chelsea did to Tottenham a few years ago.  Starting this coming season this is no longer true.  England can now have five Champion’s League entrants if the Champion’s League champion finishes in fifth place or lower.

Starting this year, the Europa League champion also qualifies for the group stage of the Champion’s League.  If that team is English but does not finish in the top four of the Premier League, they do not bump the fourth place team and, again, England can have five qualifiers.

If English teams win both the Champion’s League and the Europa League but neither of those two teams finishes in the top four of the Premier League, the fourth place team is bumped down into the Europa League.  I assume they slot in between the FA Cup winner and the fifth place team, but I do not actually know for sure.  But we now know this will not happen.

CLUB COEFFICIENTS AND SEEDING

If Southampton qualifies for the group phase of either competition, they will be seeded into one of four pots based upon club coefficients, found here. 

Since Southampton has not played in Europe in the past five years, our coefficient is the minimum awarded to all English clubs.  This should put Southampton somewhere around 120 on the list.

GROUP STAGE SEEDINGS

There has been a change in Champion’s League seeding from past years.  The top eight seeds used to be selected by their coefficients.   Starting this coming season, the title holders and the champions of the top seven leagues (Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France, and Russia) are seeded first.

The top eight remaining clubs are seeded into the second group and the next eight teams are seeded into the third group.  Since it is very unlikely that there will be eight Champion’s League group stage clubs who are ranked lower than 120, we would be placed in the lowest pot and will be drawn against good teams—we would officially be the weak team in the group.  Very likely, our group would be viewed as a group of death since we would be far tougher than most fourth seeds.

The Europa League draw follows the same rules except that it is all done by coefficients.  There are 48 clubs in the Europa League group stage.  We would be seeded into the fourth group unless 12 clubs have coefficients lower than ours.  This would not have been the case last year.

PLAYOFF AND QUALIFICATION ROUND SEEDINGS

In each playoff and qualification round, the clubs are divided into two equal groups.  The clubs with the higher coefficients are drawn against the clubs with the lower coefficients.

If Southampton finishes fourth and plays in the Champions League playoff round we will be one of the lower five seeds and will have to play the fourth place team from Spain or Germany or the third place team from Italy or Portugal or the highest rated club that advanced from the third qualifying round.

Figuring out who we would play in the Europa League playoffs and qualifying rounds is impossible, but we would almost certainly be the higher seeded team in the third qualifying round and it could go either way in the playoff round.

HOW SOUTHAMPTON IS EFFECTED BY THIS

Our number one priority would be to finish third or better.  Our next priority is to finish fourth and hope that English teams  who do not finish in the top four do not win both European competitions.  Specifically, that means Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool, and Everton because Manchester City and Chelsea are virtually certain to finish in the top four.

Failing that we want to win the FA cup or finish fifth in the league.  If we can't do that, we want to finish sixth or (maybe) seventh and hope that the League Cup is won by a team that finishes in the top seven and that the FA Cup winner [deletion] is in the top seven.