UEFA Nations League
European association football tournament for men's national teams
The UEFA Nations League is an international European football competition played by the senior men's national teams of the member associations of UEFA, the sport's European governing body. The competition was devised to minimise friendlies and give nations competitive encounters with equally ranked teams. Teams from all the European associations compete in a league structure featuring promotion and relegation.
The first tournament was held in September 2018, where Portugal emerged as the inaugural tournament champions. Since then, four editions have been played. The tournament has been hosted across Europe, including in Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany. The UEFA Nations League is held every two years with the finals taking place in odd-numbered years.
Adoption
Since 1999, various UEFA bodies had discussed national associations' needs for more competitive fixtures, including more attractive international friendlies, more competitive matches and increased revenue. In 2001, UEFA proposed three potential formats for a new national team competition, with a first edition tentatively planned for 2004–2007. However, this ultimately did not come to fruition.
“UEFA Nations League” enters the record as european association football tournament for men's national teams. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what UEFA, Nations and League can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15980635. VIAF identifies the subject as 9183154076013111860004. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2018, 1999, 2001 and 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “UEFA Nations League” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.