Greece to fall to 18th in UEFA coefficient ranking in new blow
Following Olympiacos’ narrow defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers last week, and Basel’s triumph over Eintracht Frankfurt, Greece will soon fall to 18th place of the UEFA coefficient ranking.
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Greece have fallen to a new low. Had Olympiacos progressed to the quarter-finals of the UEFA Europa League, there would have been an opportunity to rise to 16th or even 15th place of the coefficient ranking, but instead the nation will drop to 18th. At the moment, Greece occupy 17th position (26,300), however Switzerland (26,200) are guaranteed to subsequently move above the Greeks.
Basel breezed past Frankfurt 4-0 on aggregate to advance to the quarter-final stage of the Europa League. Even if Basel lose to Shakhtar Donetsk in the next phase of the competition, an extra 200 coefficient points will be added to Switzerland’s tally, meaning that the Swiss will overtake Greece into 17th spot with 26,400 points.
The consequences are dire for Greek football.
Starting from the 2020/2021 season, we will only have four clubs participating in UEFA competitions, with the Super League winners joining the UEFA Champions League in the first qualifying round and the teams in second, third and fourth places of the domestic championship all entering the UEFA Europa Conference League in the second phase of qualification! No Greek team will start out in the Europa League.
Interestingly, between 18th and 28th position of the coefficient rankings, there is no change concerning the amount of teams competing in UEFA tournaments and at what stage they join the competitions.
16th or 17th place of the ranking would have allowed the Greek champions to enter the Champions League in the second qualifying round. The remaining three teams in the leading four positions of the Super League would still have all joined the Europa Conference League in the second phase of qualification.
15th position allows for the league winners and runners-up to participate in the Champions League.
Here is the current UEFA coefficient table from first to 20th:
Spain, 100,140
England, 89,033
Germany, 72,070
Italy, 69,802
France, 56,915
Portugal, 49,449
Russia, 45,549
Belgium, 37,900
Holland, 35,750
Ukraine, 35,100
Turkey, 33,600
Austria, 32,925
Denmark, 29,000
Scotland, 27,875
Czech Republic, 27,300
Cyprus, 26,750
Greece, 26,300
Switzerland, 26,200*
Serbia, 25,500
Croatia, 24,875
*Switzerland to finish 2019/2020 season with minimum of 26,400 points
