England tops the UEFA coefficients

The debate over which of Europe's leagues is best is one that is seemingly never-ending with the opinions of various people always flexible, however, the debate is normally narrowed down to three countries, with England, Italy and Spain leading the pack and France and Germany not too far behind.

The UEFA coefficient is used to work out how many teams each league will have in the UEFA Cup and Champions League. It is based on the success of each nation's teams in European competitions over the past five seasons: each win by a club earns two points for its country and a draw earns one point, the total is then divided by the number of teams that entered European tournament from the country that season. Points during the preliminary rounds have a 50% value and bonus points are awarded for reaching various stages of the two European competitions.

Despite Manchester United being the only outstanding team in the league at the moment, the English Premiership currently tops the current standings. The top three is completed by Spain and Italy. England's Premier League was boosted by the appearance of three clubs - Chelsea, Liverpool and, eventual winners, Man United - in the semi finals of last season's Champions League. Despite this win, and their dominance of the English game over the past couple of decades, Manchester United are only rated as the seventh best club in Europe. Ahead of them lies Arsenal, Liverpool and, top of the table, Chelsea, with AC Milan and Barcelona also in the top five. This success edged England ahead of Spain in the rankings by a tight margin of 0.5, while the gap between La Liga and Serie A is close to 15 points.

These top three countries are granted four places in the Champions League and a further three in the UEFA Cup. The following three countries - currently France, Germany and Russia - each gets three teams in both of the European competitions. The next three also get six European places but these are split differently, with just two clubs in the Champions League.

The UEFA coefficient system based on five years began in 1960 and since then only four countries have topped the table: La Liga for 15 years, Serie A for 13, the English league for 11 and the Bundesliga for 10.

So, although the English Premier League is currently on top, there's no reason to think that it's going to stay there indefinitely.

Article Source: http://www.mycontentbuilder.com

Andrew Regan writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.

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