UEFA Respect Fair Play ranking

The three highest-performing associations in the UEFA Fair Play ranking were given an extra UEFA Cup berth for the best-finishing team in their top division who have not qualified for the following season's UEFA Champions League, UEFA Cup Winners' Cup or UEFA Cup. Which round the teams started from depended on their association's UEFA coefficient.

The highest-finishing club in the Fair Play rankings of a qualifying association, not yet participating in either the UEFA Champions League or the UEFA Cup (the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup became defunct after 1998–99), were potential contenders for the three remaining berths. The club from the association which won the Fair Play ranking qualified automatically for the First Qualifying Round of the UEFA Cup. The two other associations were drawn from the rest that have reached the threshold of minimum games and had a score of at least 8.0.

The three highest placed national associations in the UEFA Respect Fair Play ranking each automatically gained an extra qualification berth for the first qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League, providing they exceeded the threshold of games played, and had a minimum average score of 8.0. These berths were then allocated to the highest placed club in that association's own Fair Play league that had not yet qualified a UEFA competition.

Based upon a UEFA Executive Committee decision, approved in December 2014, from the 2015–16 season onwards, Fair Play no longer grants entry to the Europa League, instead only netting the victorious association a cash prize to be put towards "fair play or respect-themed projects".[1] It is assessed on three categories: overall fair play, year-on-year fair play (most improved association) and spectator behaviour, with each association being scored and an association being declared the winner for each category. No association can win more than one category, meaning that on receiving one category award, an association becomes ineligible to win either of the other two, with the three categories being ranked in importance so that it can be determined which category takes preference.

Teams are judged on the following criteria:

• Yellow and red cards: If no cards are shown the score will be 10. Every yellow card will deduct this total by 1. A red card will cost a team 3 points in the ranking. If the red card is the result of a second yellow card, the deductions of the second yellow card will be ignored. But if a player gets a direct red card after he got a yellow card earlier, the yellow card will be counted as a deduction. This score could become negative.
• Positive play: e.g. attacking tactics, acceleration of the game, efforts to gain time, and continued pursuit of goals. A team can score a maximum of 10 points and a minimum of 1 point
• Respect to the opponent: e.g. returning the ball to the opponent at a throw-in, helping an injured opponent: maximum 5 points, minimum 1 point
• Respect to the referee: maximum 5 points, minimum 1 point
• Behaviour of the team officials: maximum 5 points, minimum 1 point
• Behaviour of the fans: maximum 5 points, minimum 1 point

NB: this criterion is ignored when the number of fans is negligible e.g. if there are no fans at all or because of penalty that was given by the UEFA

The total number of points are divided by the maximum number of points, 40 (or 35 if there are a negligible number of fans), and multiplied by 10 which will result in a score between 0 and 10. The score is calculated to two decimal points and not rounded up.

The ranking below covers matches from 1 May 2014 to 30 April 2015 and is the final ranking.[3]

The top three associations (Netherlands, England, Republic of Ireland) gained an extra qualification berth for the 2015–16 UEFA Europa League first qualifying round.[4]

Rank	Member association	Total points	Matches played
1	Netherlands	8.151	110
2	England	8.146	160
3	Republic of Ireland	8.144	66
4	Finland	8.141	68
5	Denmark	8.128	88
6	Germany	8.123	146
7	Norway	8.113	71
8	Iceland	8.089	53
9	Sweden	8.087	110
10	Scotland	8.083	95
11	Spain	8.039	159
12	Austria	8.015	71
13	Northern Ireland	8.003	47
14	Switzerland	8.001	96
15	Belgium	7.967	107
16	France	7.960	115
17	Italy	7.953	147
18	Czech Republic	7.928	75
19	Wales	7.924	52
20	Poland	7.911	72
21	Kazakhstan	7.879	59
22	Russia	7.872	126
23	Faroe Islands	7.868	43
24	Armenia	7.864	72
25	Slovenia	7.848	71
26	Israel	7.843	55
27	Lithuania	7.824	55
28	Romania	7.811	80
29	Cyprus	7.790	69
30	Portugal	7.768	128
31	Slovakia	7.765	76
32	Croatia	7.760	86
33	Estonia	7.753	52
34	Serbia	7.749	76
35	Bosnia and Herzegovina	7.742	55
36	Hungary	7.738	68
37	Ukraine	7.700	122
38	Greece	7.694	84
39	Georgia	7.684	45
40	Belarus	7.678	83
41	Moldova	7.642	53
42	Turkey	7.615	90
43	Malta	7.600	45
44	Montenegro	7.592	44
45	Latvia	7.565	49
46	Macedonia	7.500	51
47	Azerbaijan	7.441	59
48	Albania	7.348	38
50	Gibraltar	7.809	21
51	Liechtenstein	7.767	18
52	Luxembourg	7.720	24
53	San Marino	7.485	24
54	Andorra	6.922	32

Cut-off: 37 matches played
Group 1: 37 or more matches played; Group 2: fewer than 37 matches played.

The furthest that a team progressed from a fair-play entry was the quarter-finals, achieved by Aston Villa (1997–98), Rayo Vallecano (2000–01) and Manchester City (2008–09), with Manchester City being the only team to have progressed beyond the group stage since this was introduced in 2004–05.[27]