You’ve probably seen the patches and logos on adboards around Champions League and Europa league matches. “Respect” is one of them; “My Game is Fair Play” is another. All of those signs are part of the Europa League’s Fair Play Assessment statutes. Instituted in the 93/94 season, the Fair Play Assessment states the following:
The fair play assessment forms part of the Respect campaign. Conduct according to the spirit of fair play is essential for the successful promotion and development of and involvement in sport. The objective of activities in favour of fair play is to foster a sporting spirit, as well as the sporting behaviour of players, team officials and spectators, thereby increasing the enjoyment of all those involved in the game. (Regulations of the UEFA Europa League 2009/10, p. 58)
We’ll get to why these matter for Burnley in a minute. First, let’s talk about what these rules mean for everyone involved in any manner of European competition.
Generally speaking, the Fair Play rules are aimed at trying to make players not act like jerks during matches. To achieve this goal, however, there needs to be a criteria (i.e., you can’t just say call a guy a jerk and make it stick); the Fair Play rankings are the end result of that criteria.
It works like this: for every European match played (both in international and club competition), the UEFA match delegate identifies six items for both teams involved, and giving a maximum of ten points per category. Those areas:
Red and Yellow Cards
This one’s easy. Each team starts with ten points; they lose one point per yellow and three points per red (if a player gets two yellows, they only lose three; if a cautioned player receives a straight red later in the match, however, the team loses four).
Positive Play
According to UEFA: The aim of this item is to reward positive play which is attractive for the spectators.
I have no idea why this is here, because it seems like it’s not really part of “Fair Play” rules. First of all, it’s completely legal and within the rules of the match to set up defensively, and if you’re a lower-league team that’s playing, say, Barcelona, it’s probably also a good idea. Secondly, “attractive football” means different things to different people; I like watching good passing, but I also enjoy watching crunching tackles, and I’m not sure I’d want a game all about the former with none of the latter. Thirdly, he defensive tactics can still result in entertaining matches (the second leg of the Champions League semifinal last year between Chelsea and Barcelona, for instance, saw both defensive tactics and entertainment mixed together).
Regardless of how I feel, however, this arbitrary criteria is in. A team can earn ten points, and should be judged on the basis of the following “Positive” and “Negative” criteria:
Positive aspects:
- attacking rather then defensive tactics
- acceleration of the game
- efforts to gain time, e.g. bringing the ball quickly back into play, even when in a winning position
- continued pursuit of goals, even if the desired result (e.g. qualification or an away draw) has already been achieved
Negative aspects:
- deceleration of the game
- time-wasting
- tactics based on foul play
- play-acting, etc.
I agree with the “efforts to gain time” and “play-acting” standards, but the rest is part of the game; it makes no sense to push for the third goal if you’re up by two and just don’t need to concede. This criteria seems to impose UEFA’s version of football onto teams; the beautiful thing about the sport, however, is that there’s no set way you have to play, and this seems to undermine that. But whatever.
Respect for the Opponents
You can get five points on this one; it’s basically saying that you can’t be a dick to the other team. Double counting of red and yellow cards should be avoided (i.e., when your centerback ninja-kicked the opposing striker from behind in the penalty box, he TECHNICALLY wasn’t showing him much respect; however, since you’ve already lost points once for that, we’ll ignore the incident here).
Respect for the Referees
Five points are available on this one, too; it’s saying you can’t be a dick to the referee (double counting is again avoided).
Behaviour of the Team Officials
Again, five points; coaches can’t be dickheads either.
Behaviour of the Fans
Five points are available here as well; clearly, it’s saying that fans can’t be dicks to the players and throw things at them because they’re from a country they don’t like. Interestingly, in situations where there aren’t enough fans available to make a determination, this one is waived.
Altogether, that’s forty points available (thirty five if your fans hate you); the UEFA delegate then divides the points you earn by the total number of points and multiplies by ten, leaving you with a number between one and ten. That’s your score. Then, all OTHER teams in your association, plus your national team, have their scores averaged together. This is your country’s Fair Play score. The ranking is just taking all of those scores and putting them in order.
Now back to Burnley. The rankings for last year were already released (.pdf); Sweden is first, Denmark is second, and England is third (Finland is in fourth place, and Norway’s got a long history of winning this outright; they’re apparently very polite in Scandanavian countries). What that means is that Sweden, Denmark, and England all get an extra Europa League berth.
Settle down, though, Everton; that’s not a berth for you. Instead, this berth goes to the team that tops their local association’s Fair Play table; if that team has already qualified for Europe, however, then it goes to the second placed team…then the third placed…etc., etc.
Which brings us to Burnley. The most recent Fair Play table looks like this (it’s updated monthly, so if you read this the day after I wrote it some of the data may change):
- Arsenal (Qualified to the Champions League through league finishing position)
- Tottenham (Qualified to either the Champions League or Europa League through league finishing position)
- Fulham
- Manchester United (Qualified to the Champions League through league finishing position)
- Chelsea (Qualified to the Champions League through league finishing position)
- Burnley
Fulham yesterday qualified for the Europa League final. This means that they’re in the Europa League next year regardless of whether or not they win the final; if they win, however, they qualify automatically through that before they qualify through Fair Play. Manchester United and Chelsea won’t be slumming it in the Europa League next year with Liverpool, as they’ve already qualified for the Champions League.
That leaves already-relegated (but particularly well behaved) Burnley as the inheritor of England’s Europa League Fair Play spot.
No way the FA allows this to go through.
Actually, it’s a contingency that’s fully acknowledged (and, apparently, supported) by UEFA; in the preamble to the rankings (same .pdf from above), this situation is specifically addressed (emphasis mine):
Each of the three associations allocated an additional place in the first qualifying round of the 2010/11 UEFA Europa League will be entitled to enter the club that has won their domestic top-division fair play competition. If this club has already qualified for a UEFA club competition, the second-placed team in the domestic fair play competition may be entered, and, should they also have already qualified, the third-placed team would be considered and so forth. It is even possible for a team that has been relegated to the second highest division to qualify for the UEFA Europa League, as a result of its exemplary fair play conduct during the domestic championship.
Based on that (and the fact that Burnley’s finances are way more in order than, say, Portsmouth’s), I’d say they’re going if Fulham win; the FA would have to prove that they had some reason for not going, and apparently relegation isn’t enough of a reason for UEFA.
I hope Burnley do get to play. Didn’t Burnley allow all of last year’s season ticket holders to renew for free once they made it to the Premier League? What a great way for them to recover some (all?) of that lost money. That’s good karma.
If Burnley would make it in, I wonder what there priorities would be? Focus on the promotion battle, or go all in with the Europa, try to at least make the groups. It would probably mean a ton of fixture congestion later in the season as well, as the Colaship (use it while you can) plays more midweek fixtures than the Prem.
Oh my. Their, not there, obviously.
I would think, realistically, that if money is their main priority that they’ll focus on promotion…but European matches at Turf Moor would be pretty sweet. It’d kind of be like when AC Milan had to come to Fratton Park last year.
I’d be interested to see how the reward structure in the Championship (money for final position, etc.) would compare to the reward structure is in the Europa League.
Have to think that for a club of Burnley’s stature that Europe would be worth taking quite seriously, especially if that means they can hold on to young talent like Chris Eagles, who is rumored to be leaving in the summer…
Only the winner of the Europa League gets an automatic berth in next year’s edition. Appearing in the finals of the Europa League does not automatically qualify a club for the next season.