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Overview

UEFA uses two, connected, systems of ranking nations and clubs to decide what round teams enter Europe at, and how clubs are seeded within those rounds. It is extremely nerdy, but if you can follow it, you might figure out why a team like St Patrick’s Athletic will enter at Qualifying Round 1 and be seeded in Qualifying Round 2, yet Derry City will enter at QR2 but not be seeded. The correct way to look at these is to not really care but if you do, hopefully this will help.

What’s the League of Ireland’s co-efficient now?

Ireland is ranked in 36th place in Europe with a co-efficient of 7.375. That score is calculated over a 5 year period (so in this case it relates to results by LOI clubs from 2008/09 to 2012/13).

So where did 7.375 come from?

The breakdown by year/club is;

2008/09 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 Total Ireland 2.5 1.375 1 1.5 1 7.375 St Patrick's Athletic 1.5 0.625 0.5 0.625 3.25 Drogheda United 0.83 0.83 Cork City 0.17 0.17 Bohemians 0.125 0.25 0.125 0.125 0.625 Derry City 0.5 0.5 Sligo Rovers 0.125 0.125 0.125 0.375 Sporting Fingal 0 0 Dundalk 0.375 0.375 Shamrock Rovers 0.375 0.75 0.125 1.25

(UEFA rounding applied...)

And how do clubs add points to this national score?

Each positive result earns points for the national score. In Qualification Rounds, clubs get 1 point for a win and 0.5 points for a draw. This is doubled for the competition proper. The total points earned are then divided by the number of clubs entered to give the co-efficient for that year. For example - 2008/09

Comp Rd LOI Opposition Home Away Co-Eff Added CL 1st QR Drogheda United Levadia Tallinn 2-1 1-0 2 0.67 CL 2nd QR Drogheda United Dynamo Kiev 1-2 2-2 0.5 0.17 UEFA 1st QR Cork City Haka 2-2 0-4 0.5 0.17 UEFA 1st QR St Patrick's Athletic JFK Olimps Riga 2-0 1-0 2 0.67 UEFA 2nd QR St Patrick's Athletic Elfsborg 2-1 2-2 1.5 0.5 UEFA 1st Rd St Patrick's Athletic Hertha Berlin 0-0 0-2 1 0.33 Totals 7.5 2.5

· Drogheda earned 2.5 points for 2 wins and a draw in the qualifiers

· Cork earned 0.5 points for 1 draw in a qualifier

· Pats earned 4.5 points for 3 wins and a draw in the qualifier and 1 draw in the First Round Proper.

· The total of 7.5 is divided by 3 to leave Ireland’s score for the year at 2.5

2008/09 is the last year that Ireland earned points in the Competition proper. Since then all points earned have been in the qualifiers. Here’s last year

Comp Rd LOI Opposition Home Away Co-Eff Added CL 2nd QR Shamrock Rovers Ekranes 0-0 0-2 0.5 0.125 EL 1st QR St Patrick's Athletic IBV 1-0 1-2 1 0.25 EL 2nd QR St Patrick's Athletic Siroki Brijeg 2-1 1-1 1.5 0.375 EL 3rd QR St Patrick's Athletic Hannover 96 0-3 0-2 0 0 EL 1st QR Bohemians Por Akureyri 0-0 1-5 0.5 0.125 EL 2nd QR Sligo Rovers Spartak Trnava 1-3 1-1 0.5 0.125 Totals 4 1

So Ireland earned a total of 4 points through 2 wins and 4 draws in qualifying. That divides by 4 to add 1 point to Ireland’s score.

So that’s the national score then, what does it affect?

The national score is used to determine what rounds countries enter both UEFA competitions at. You can see the access list (based on the co-efficient earned to end 2011/12 here at Bert Kassies site for UEFA nerds;

You can see that Ireland in 33rd position had its Cup Winner enter at the 2nd qualifying round. That won’t happen next year as Ireland has slipped.

So what affects club seeding?

Clubs are seeded based on their own individual ranking, which has a (somewhat) different method of calculating points. The club score is made up of 20% of the national score added to whatever club points they earn themselves. As Ireland is on 7.375 that means that the lowest any Irish club could be is 1.475. This is the case for Drogheda United as they have not earned any club points in the past 5 season.

So how are club points earned?

Before 2009/10 Club points were only earned by positive results in the CL/UEFA Cup proper (ie qualification rounds didn’t count). Currently only St Pats’ 0-0 draw with Hertha Berlin in 2008 (which earned them 1 point) counts towards any Irish club’s score.

Since 2009/10 teams have earned club points based on the round they exited European competition. They are as follows;

Europa League 1st QR 0.25 Europa League 2nd QR 0.5 Champions League 1st QR 0.5 Champions League 2nd QR 1 Europa League 3rd QR 1 Europa League Play Off 1.5 Europa League Groups 2 Champions League Groups 4

There’s more for the knock-outs etc but that’s not really relevant for us.

So what are the Irish club rankings then?

This table shows how each Irish’s clubs’ co-efficient has been built over the past five years

Current UEFA Club Co-efficient for Irish clubs 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 National Total St Patrick's Athletic 1 1.5 0 1 1 1.475 5.975 Shamrock Rovers 0 0 1 2 1 1.475 5.475 Bohemians 0 1 1 0.5 0.25 1.475 4.225 Sligo Rovers 0 0.25 0 1 0.5 1.475 3.225 Derry City 0 1 0 0 0 1.475 2.475 Dundalk 0 0 0.5 0 0 1.475 1.975 Rest of League 0 0 0 0 0 1.475 1.475

So you can see that individual qualifying results don’t really matter for club points purposes. In 2011/12 Pats and Sligo both earned a point for leaving at the EL 3rd QR. Pats had won 2 rounds to get there, Sligo had entered there directly because of the then-strong National ranking. Bohemians didn’t win a CL ties in 2009/10 or 2010/11 but earned a point each year, showing the extra value attached to CL (compared to EL).

Club points can still be earned for individual results in the group stages and knock out rounds (1 for draw, 2 for win) but Shamrock Rovers came up empty handed in the only Irish attempt at doing so so far.

And how does that affect seeding in each round?

All clubs in each receive a rating and then the top half become seeded, the bottom half unseeded. Some draws are down together, or before the round is complete, so for the purposes of the draw UEFA assumes that the seeded teams will win the previous round in designating seeds for that round.

And this year?

In the Champions League 2nd QR, Sligo will enter and be unseeded. They will be unseeded in any subsequent rounds should they qualify.

In the Europa League QR 1, Pats will be seeded, Drogheda will be unseeded.

It gets a little trickier here;

In the Europa League QR 2 (made as same time as QR 1), Derry will be unseeded. The winner of the Pats tie is seeded, the winner of the Drogheda side may be seeded (depending on who the draw in QR1).

It gets very tricky here;

The draw for EL QR3 happens between the 2 legs of QR2. Winner of Pats QR2 tie will be unseeded (if still involved). The winners of the ties involving Derry and Drogheda may be seeded, depending on the ranking of their opponents. It will become much clearer when the draws for QR 1 & QR 2 are made.

If any Irish clubs are still involved in Europe by EL Play off, they will be unseeded as UEFA waits for the previous rounds to be complete.

And how will the results affect my club’s ranking next year?

Each positive result will only add a fraction to the club’s individual co-efficient. Ireland will lose 2.5 points for next year (earned in 2008/09). That means that if Irish teams lost every game next year the base LOI club score would be 0.975. That would rise by 0.05 with every Irish win and by 0.025 with every Irish draw in the qualifiers. So if you’re team isn’t in Europe, any single result won’t really effect you in any meaningful way. If every Irish club lost this year, next year’s rankings would be;

Shamrock Rovers 4.975 St Patrick's Athletic 4.725 Bohemians 3.725 Sligo Rovers 3.725 Derry City 2.475 Dundalk 1.475 Drogheda United 1.225

For Pats to maintain their (highest ever by a LOI club) co-efficient, they would need to reach the Europa League Play Off Round.