Finland, Norway, Sweden lead Respect Fair Play race

Finland head UEFA's Respect Fair Play rankings, based on all UEFA competition matches played at club and national-team levels from 1 May 2013 to 30 April 2014.

Taking into account the 1,597 UEFA matches played up to 31 December, frontrunners Finland, second-placed Norway and third-ranked Sweden lead the race for the three additional slots in the first qualifying round of the 2014/15 UEFA Europa League.

For the current intermediate rankings, only associations that have played a minimum of 30 games are taken into account. This cut-off point is calculated by dividing the total number of UEFA fixtures by the number of UEFA member associations.

As defined in the club competition regulations, three places in the UEFA Europa League will go automatically to the three best-placed national associations in the Respect Fair Play table, provided they attained an average of 8.0 points or more. The Respect Fair Play assessments are made by the official UEFA delegates, based on criteria such as positive play, respect for the opposition, respect for the referee, behaviour of the crowd and team officials, as well as cautions and dismissals.

Each of the three associations allocated an additional berth in the first qualifying round of the 2014/15 UEFA Europa League will be entitled to enter the club that won its domestic top-division fair play competition. If this club have already qualified for a UEFA competition, the second-placed team in the domestic fair play competition may be entered, and so on. It is even possible for a side that have been relegated to the second division to qualify for the UEFA Europa League, as a result of exemplary fair play conduct during the domestic championship.

The final UEFA Respect Fair Play rankings will be published in May.

Click here for the interim rankings from 31 December.