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The UEFA has announced a completely new format for the Champions Leagueand the UEFA Cup for the 1999/2000 season.The new UEFA Cup is a combination of the Cup WinnersCup and the old UEFA Cup.The UEFA country ranking of 1998determines the ranking of the countries in the tables below.
The main focus of the pages at this site is about the calculationof the coefficients and rankings used for the qualification and seedingof teams for the Champions League and the UEFA Cup. There are nodata on individual matches other then the results.Results and qualification data for the UEFA Intertoto Cup are notavailable at this site.
1. Champions League
The Champions League is restructured to contain 32 teams inthe first league stage, and will be preceeded by threequalifying stages. The champions of all countries enterthe Champions League, but high ranked countries can sendup to 4 teams. Some teams of high ranked countries aredirectly qualified for the league stage, while othershave to play qualifying rounds.Losing teams in the 3rd qualifying round enter the 1st round of the UEFACup, and third-placed teams from the 1st league stageenter the 3rd round of the UEFA Cup.
The place for the defending cup holder is only used when that team hasnot otherwise qualified. If this place is not used then the champion ofthe 10th country on the country ranking list will gain direct access tothe 1st league stage, the champion of the 16th country on the countryranking list will gain direct access to the 3rd qualifying round, andthe champions of the 27th and 28th country on the country ranking listwill gain direct access to the 2nd qualifying round.
No clubs from Bosnia and Herzegovina will be admitted to the Europeancompetitions of 1999/2000 because its qualifying tournament was cancelled.
In 1999 the place for the defending cup holder is not used, becauseManchester United already qualified as champion of England.This leads to the following specific format for theChampions League of 1999/2000:
2. UEFA Cup
The UEFA Cup is a competition for the runners-up and the Cup Winnersof each country, some teams expelled from the ChampionsLeague, the best teams of the Intertoto Cup, and teams from countrieswho top the UEFA Fair Play competition.If the Cup Winner of a country also qualifies for the Champions League,then the losing team of the cup final replaces the Cup Winner of thatcountry. If both cup finalists qualify for the Champions League, thenthe two losing semi-finalists could play a play-off match to determinethe cup representative of that country (1999: Turkey). However, in thelatter case, the cup representative is treated as a league entrant,and the 'cup-winner' slot of that country goes to the team with thehighest league position. In some countries (1999: Spain) there will be noplay-off match between the two losing semi-finalists, but an additionalteam based on league position is send to the UEFA Cup.
In some countries (1999: England and France) the last league entrantposition is given to the League Cup Winner.
No clubs from Bosnia and Herzegovina will be admitted to the Europeancompetitions of 1999/2000 because its qualifying tournament was cancelled.
In 1999 the place for the defending cup holder is not used, becauseLazio Roma already qualified for the Champions League. This leads tothe following specific format for the UEFA Cup of 1999/2000:
UEFA Country Ranking
The basis for the UEFA rankings is the performance of teams in theEuropean Cups during a five year period. During that period each teamgets two points for a win and one point for a draw. From 1999 on these points are halved for qualification matches: onepoint for a win and halve a point for a draw.One bonus point is allocated for reaching the quarter final,the semi final and the final.Reaching the league stage of the Champions Cup yields one bonus point(situation since 1999 not clear: I assume the bonus point is awardedonly for the 2nd league stage).The so-called UEFA coefficients are calculated by taking an average, basedon the total number of points divided by the total number of teams ofeach country.Because the UEFA changed the calculation of the yearly coefficientssuddenly with the calculation of the rankings of 1999, there aretwo sets of coefficients for 1995-1998. Also for this reason I will splitmy archive in 2 sections: seearchive.
The UEFA country ranking is computed by the sum of 5 coefficients in thelast 5 years. To determine the participants inthe Champions League and the UEFA Cup the last year ranking is used,because each country should know at the start of the season how manyplaces it disposes.
UEFA Team Ranking
The UEFA Executive Committee at its meeting on April 22, 1999,decided that "the procedure for the seeding of clubs in the twomain UEFA club competitions should be changed from next season. Seedingis currently based on the coefficient of a club's respective nationalassociation. However, from the 1999/2000 season, the seeding will bebased on the club's individual coefficient in UEFA competitions over thepreceding five years, as well as half the national coefficient. A 50%weighting of the national coefficient has been retained, in order toensure that clubs who represent a strong European league, but who havenot qualified for UEFA competition for five seasons, would still enterthe competitions at an advanced stage."The UEFA team coefficients are calculated as the sum of the numberof points of each individual team, and 50% of the country coefficient.For the calculation of the team coefficients games played inqualifying or preliminary rounds are not taken into account.
The UEFA team ranking is computed by the sum of 5 coefficients in thelast 5 years. In this list the yellow lineswith country information indicate the lowest possible value for ateam of that country (even if that team didn't play any game in the lastfive years).
Before 1999 a number of strong teams in the UEFA Cup were seededsuch that those teams do not meet in the first two rounds.To determine these teams,the sum of the ratio of the number of points achieved, divided bythe number of games played by each team, was calculated for the pastfive years.For the calculation of the seeding coefficients games played inqualifying or preliminary rounds are not taken into account.