UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying explained

Tourney Name:UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying
Dates: –
Num Teams:51
Confederations:1
Matches:148
Top Scorer: Lara Prašnikar
(8 goals)
Updated:16 July 2024
Prevseason:2022
Nextseason:2029

The UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying competition is a women's football competition that determines the 15 teams joining the automatically qualified host Switzerland in the UEFA Women's Euro 2025 final tournament.[1]

Format

The European Qualifiers started on 5 April 2024, following the conclusion of the 2023–24 Women's Nations League. The qualifiers are composed of a league stage and final tournament play-offs.

The league stage is played in the same format as the UEFA Women's Nations League, with teams split into three leagues: League A with 16 teams, League B with 16 teams and League C with 19 teams. Each team's starting league position is determined based on the results of the preceding Women's Nations League. In February 2024, promotion/relegation matches were played to determine the final composition of each league.

Again, teams compete in groups of four (Leagues A and B) and four or three teams (League C) and over six matchdays, with each team playing one home match and one away match against all the other teams in their group.

The goals for this competition are: to qualify for the UEFA Women's Euro 2025; and to be positioned as high as possible for the upcoming 2025–26 UEFA Women's Nations League.

The European Qualifiers ranking at the end of the league stage determines three main outcomes:

For Euro 2025 qualification:

Promotion and relegation will take place prior to the upcoming 2025–26 UEFA Women's Nations League[2] and will have no effect on qualification for the play-offs for Euro 2025:

The 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup qualification will work in the same way, except that only the group winners of League A will qualify directly.

Tiebreakers

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:

  1. Higher number of points obtained in the matches played among the teams in question;
  2. Higher 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. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 11 apply;
  5. Higher 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 2024–25 Women's European Qualifiers access list.

Notes

Criteria for league ranking

Individual league rankings are established according to the following criteria:

  1. Position in the group;
  2. Higher number of points;
  3. Higher goal difference;
  4. Higher number of goals scored;
  5. Higher number of goals scored away from home;
  6. Higher number of wins;
  7. Higher number of wins away from home;
  8. Lower disciplinary points total (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).
  9. Position in the 2024–25 Women's European Qualifiers access list

In order to rank teams in League C, which is composed of different sized groups, the results against the fourth-placed teams are not taken into account when comparing teams placed first, second, and third in their respective groups.

Criteria for overall ranking

The overall UEFA Nations League rankings are established as follows:

  1. The 16 League A teams are ranked 1st to 16th according to their league rankings.
  2. The 16 League B teams are ranked 17th to 32nd according to their league rankings.
  3. The League C teams are ranked 33rd onwards according to their league rankings.

Teams

All 55 UEFA national teams were able to submit an entry for the competition by 23 March 2023 at the latest.[3] This involved participation in the qualifying competition for Euro 2025 as well as the preceding 2023–24 UEFA Women's Nations League.

In total, 51 teams entered the qualifying competition.[2] Russia were not permitted to enter the competition due to them being suspended because of their country's invasion of Ukraine.[4] In addition, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein and San Marino did not submit an entry.

Teams were split into leagues based on the overall ranking and on the promotion/relegation matches from the 2023–24 Women's Nations League competition.[5]

Teams were divided into four pots of four in Leagues A and B, and three pots of five and one pot of four in League C. The seedings, pots, and draw procedure were confirmed by UEFA on 1 March 2024.

Key
Promoted after 2023–24 Women's Nations League league phase
Relegated after 2023–24 Women's Nations League league phase
League A
PotTeam
11
2
3
4
25
6
7
8
39
10
11
12
417
18
19
20
League B
PotTeam
113
14
15
16
221
22
23
24
325
26
27
33
434
35
36
37
League C
PotTeam
128
29
30
31
32
238
39
40
41
42
343
44
45
46
47
448
49
50
51

Draw

The draw for the UEFA Women's European Qualifiers took place in Nyon, Switzerland on 5 March 2024 at 13:00 CET.[6] For political reasons, Kosovo could not be drawn into the same group as either Bosnia and Herzegovina or Serbia. In addition, the teams in League C that previously played in three-team groups in the 2023–24 Women's Nations League (Bulgaria and North Macedonia), were drawn into four-team groups for this competition.[6]

Schedule

Below is the schedule of the UEFA Women's European Qualifiers 2025 campaign.[2]

StageDraw dateMatchdayDates
Qualifying group stage5 March 2024Matchday 1 & 25–9 April 2024
Matchday 3 & 431 May – 4 June 2024
Matchday 5 & 612–16 July 2024
Play-offs19 July 2024Round 125–29 October 2024
Round 227 November–3 December 2024

League A

See main article: UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying League A.

Group A4

League B

See main article: UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying League B.

Ranking of third-placed teams

League C

See main article: UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying League C.

Ranking of second-placed teams

Due to unequal group sizes in League C, results against fourth-placed teams were not considered when comparing teams finishing first, second, or third in their groups.

Play-offs

See main article: UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying play-offs.

The play-offs determine the final seven teams that qualify for the final tournament and are played over two rounds.

28 teams compete in the play-offs: the 8 worst-ranked teams in League A, the top 12 teams in League B (excluding hosts Switzerland), and the top 8 teams in League C.

In the first round, the eight worst-ranked teams in League A were seeded and drawn into ties against the eight best-ranked teams in League C. The eight winners progress to the second round. In addition, the six best-ranked teams in League B (except Switzerland) were seeded and drawn into ties against the next six best-ranked teams in League B. The six winners progress to the second round.

In the second round, the teams from both paths came together and were drawn into seven ties. The winners of those ties progress to the final tournament.

Teams

Qualified teams

The following teams have qualified for the final tournament alongside the hosts Switzerland.

TeamQualified asQualified ondata-sort-type="number"Previous appearances in Women's Euro1
(2017, 2022)
(1989, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013, 2017, 2022)
(1997, 2013, 2017, 2022)
(2009, 2013, 2017, 2022)
(1984, 1991, 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013, 2017, 2022)
(1997, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013, 2017, 2022)
(1984, 1987, 1995, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013, 2017, 2022)
(1984, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013, 2017, 2022)
(2009, 2013, 2017, 2022)

1 Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.

Overall ranking

The results of each team's league rankings were used to calculate the overall ranking of the competition, using the ranking criteria,[7] and will be used for seeding in the Euro 2025 final tournament draw and the upcoming 2025–26 Women's Nations League. Teams will be promoted or relegated for the next Nations League as indicated.

Key
Promotion to higher league for 2025–26 Women's Nations League
Relegation to lower league for 2025–26 Women's Nations League

Notes and References

  1. Web site: New women's national team competition system. UEFA. 3 November 2022.
  2. Web site: Women's European Qualifiers for Euro 2025: Who is in what league? . UEFA.com . Union of European Football Association.
  3. UEFA European Women's Championship 2023–25, including UEFA Nations League and European Qualifiers – competition regulations, entry form and league stage draw for the UEFA Nations League phase . 7/2023 . UEFA Circular Letter . . 6 February 2023 . 7 February 2023.
  4. Web site: FIFA/UEFA suspend Russian clubs and national teams from all competitions . UEFA.com . Union of European Football Associations . 28 February 2022 . 27 September 2022.
  5. Web site: 2024 Women's European Qualifiers Composition . UEFA.com . UEFA . 2 March 2024.
  6. Web site: Women's European Qualifiers league stage draw. uefa.com. UEFA. 5 March 2024.
  7. Web site: Regulations of the UEFA European Women's Championship including UEFA Nations League and European Qualifiers . . 7 February 2023 . 7 February 2023 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230207171941/https://documents.uefa.com/api/khub/maps/ZZT5rg~97mziHwZJcgpxHA/attachments/ua8BbyEvGGF8Opxov~Zi9w/content?Ft-Calling-App=ft%2Fturnkey-portal&Ft-Calling-App-Version=4.1.6&filename=20230125_Regulations_WEURO_2025_EN.pdf . 7 February 2023.

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