| Football in Monaco | |
|---|---|
 Stade Louis II is the home stadium of the clubAS Monaco. | |
| Country | Monaco |
| Governing body | FMF |
| National team | Monaco |
| First played | 1919; 106 years ago (1919) |
| Clubs | 1 |
| Club competitions | |
Football is the most popular sport in the smallPrincipality of Monaco, enjoying large popularity alongsidemotor racing,yachting andtennis.[1] It is governed by theMonegasque Football Federation.
Monaco is one of two sovereign European states (along with theVatican City) that is not aUEFA member and does not have a national team competing inUEFA Euro qualifiers orFIFA World Cup qualifiers. The cause of this may be the historically close ties to France, but this is also true ofAndorra, while they have their own separate team. It may be purely because Monaco have never applied to join UEFA, despite fulfilling all the required criteria. In recent years, there has reportedly been more interest in achieving this status.
TheMonaco national team instead tend to play small-scale matches against non-FIFA members, usually across the border inCap-d'Ail.
Domestic football within the principality is governed by theMonegasque Football Federation, founded in 2000.
Football in Monaco is dominated byAS Monaco, who were founded in 1919 and play in the FrenchLigue 1, which they have won on eight occasions, also winning fiveFrench Cups in the process. The club have traditionally been heavily backed by the monarchy, with large financial support which helps the club compete with teams from much larger cities. The club plays at the Stade Louis II, where average attendances have sometimes been as low as 5,000 demonstrating the need for financial aid to compete with teams who draw crowds several times that figure.
In 2004, they were runners-up in theUEFA Champions League toFC Porto, widely regarded as the most prestigious club tournament in world-wide football. Their success and the large financial subsidy they receive has caused occasional bad feelings; it has been proposed, often by rival clubs in the Ligue 1, that AS Monaco should not be allowed to qualify for European competition from the French League, thereby taking a place allocated for a French team, with some even suggesting they should be expelled from French football altogether.
One compromise that has been suggested is that AS Monaco continue to play in the French League system, but take part in a yearly qualifying tournament to earn the right to represent Monaco in European competition, as football teams inCanada do by theCanadian Championship. This solution would require the Principality to gain full or associate member status of UEFA first.
On 4 February 2022, AS Monaco passed the 20 million social media fan mark, which is the 16th largest in Europe.[2]
Despite the small size of the country, Monaco still has many teams (mostly works teams, set up by employers or employees of a company), and they compete yearly in different competitions, which are:
Previously Monaco hosted theUEFA Super Cup between the winners of theUEFA Champions League and theUEFA Cup.UEFA announced that from2013 onwards, various stadiums will be used for theSuper Cup.[3][4]
| Stadium | Capacity | City | Club | Image |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stade Louis II | 18,523 | Monaco | AS Monaco |  |
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