The classifications of the European zone for the national team competitions, such as the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Euro Cup, will be reduced to groups of four or five teams (for the current five or six), as announced on Wednesday by the UEFAwhich has also approved a reformed League of Nations.
According to the new format adopted by the UEFA Executive Committee, the qualifying tournaments for the final phases will have fewer matches, as the fifty European nations are divided into groups of four or five teams.
The objective of the reform, according to UEFA, is “to offer more attractive and exciting competitions within the existing dates, as well as to strengthen the resources of the national federations and guarantee a constant recovery from the impact of the pandemic.”
To do this, “a more compact format of the European Qualifiers results in more attractive playoffs without increasing the total number of matches.”
The winners of the 12 groups will qualify directly for the World Cup and the Euro Cup, as well as the best runners-up. The rest of the runners-up in each group will play a play-off against teams that have qualified through the UEFA Nations League.
With the expansion of the World Cup to 48 teams in 2026, for the 32 that have played it so far, Europe will contribute 16 teams, three more than those that participated in Qatar 2022.
The number of participating teams in Euro 2028 remains at 24, as confirmed by the European confederation.
Quarterfinals in the Nations League
Regarding the League of Nations, the new competition created by UEFA in 2018 as a substitute for friendlies, the format is modified to include a round-trip quarterfinal, keeping the ‘Final Four’ (semifinals and final) by match only in June.
These novelties must be adapted to the reforms announced in December by FIFA, which plans to merge the international windows of September and October starting in the autumn of 2025 and organize friendly tournaments in March, the ‘FIFA World Series’, which will bring together teams from different confederations.
UEFA also decided this Wednesday that the next Super Cup It will be held in Athens in August, removing the organization of this party from Kazan, the initially planned venue, due to the sanctions against Russia and Belarus for the invasion of Ukraine.
to finish, UEFA lifts the health protocol related to covid-19 launched as of 2020, although he qualified that he will continue to “closely monitor the evolution of the pandemic.”
