The idiot’s guide to Toon Europa qualification
Posted on March 23rd, 2012 | 77 Comments |
First of all the rules:
– England is awarded 4 Champions League and 3 Europa League spots. A further Europa League spot is up for grabs if England places in the top 3 of UEFA’s ‘Fair Play’ league and, if so, that place then goes to the English team who tops the Fair Play League.
– The top 3 positions qualify for the group stage of the Champions League automatically and the team finishing 4th has to win a 2-leg play-off to get into the group stage.
– The 5th position qualifies for the Europa League.
– The winners of the League Cup qualify for the Europa League. If the winners of the League Cup also qualify in some other way (ie. by their league position or via the FA Cup), the next highest League finisher qualifies for the Europa League.
– The winners of the FA Cup qualify for the Europa League. If the winners of the FA Cup also qualify for a Champions League position the runners-up qualify instead. If the runner-up has already qualified too, the next highest League finisher qualifies for the Europa League.
There are also rules relating to defending champions of either the Champions League or the Europa League and these can affect who qualifies, but they’re irrelevant as far as this season is concerned because no English team is defending a European title.
For the purposes of simplicity, I’m going to assume the following in this article:
1. The top 4 will be as they are now (in any order). That means that Man City, Man Utd, Arsenal and Spurs will be in the Champions League.
2. 5th, 6th and 7th will be contended between Liverpool, Chelsea and Newcastle.
Now, as to Newcastle’s situation, we will qualify for Europe if we finish 5th regardless of what happens in the FA Cup, so that’s a way to make certain of it. Liverpool have already qualified for Europe via the League Cup so if they finish 5th, the team finishing 6th will qualify for the Europa League too.
As to the FA Cup, the following teams are still in it (as of Friday 24rd March 2012): Spurs, Bolton, Sunderland, Everton, Liverpool and Chelsea. The semi-finals are Liverpool v Everton/Sunderland and Spurs/Bolton v Chelsea. That means the final can be any one of the following:
Liverpool v Spurs
Liverpool v Bolton
Liverpool v Chelsea
Everton v Spurs
Everton v Bolton
Everton v Chelsea
Sunderland v Spurs
Sunderland v Bolton
Sunderland v Chelsea
The way this works out is:
– we can get to Europe finishing 6th or 7th in the following circumstances:
1. The final is Liverpool v Chelsea or Liverpool v Spurs, regardless of who wins.
2. The final is Liverpool v Bolton and Liverpool win.
3. The final is Chelsea v Everton and Chelsea win.
4. The final is Chelsea v Sunderland and Chelsea win.
– in all other circumstances we must finish 5th OR finish 6th and be above Chelsea to qualify.
Or course if any other teams come into the reckoning for 5th-7th place finishes it gets more complicated and I can’t be bothered to work that out.
Two things. First, that’s correct to the best of my knowledge but I was wrong once back in 1976 and this could be a second occurrence of that rare event (if you spot any errors I’ll correct them). Second, I know this is a “why bother” article and contender for most boring post of 2012, so don’t bother telling me!
Edit: Amended for clarity.
Thanks Hugh – this idiot has been guided