UEFA wants to change a rule that could decide the path to major tournaments
UEFA, according to information that has appeared in foreign media, is preparing a change that could significantly affect the final matches of additional qualifiers for major national-team tournaments. It concerns the rule for hosting playoff finals, that is, the match in which the final step toward the European Championship or the World Cup is often decided in a single encounter. The current model, in an important part, left room for the draw: better-ranked national teams had home advantage in the semifinals, but the host of the final was determined in advance by a draw between the two possible semifinal winners. The new idea, if included in the final regulations, would move toward having the better-seeded or better-ranked national team in a given playoff path play the final at home.
Such a change would be more than a technical correction of the rulebook. In national-team football, home ground in a match with no second chance often carries great sporting, logistical and psychological weight, especially when it is played in front of a full stadium and when the stake is qualification for a tournament held only every four years. In official announcements in recent months, UEFA has already opened a broader process of reforming men's national-team competitions after Euro 2028, and in that context there is increasing emphasis on reducing the influence of chance and strengthening the importance of results achieved in previous stages. Still, the specific provision on hosting playoff finals must still be treated with caution: until it is published in the final text of the relevant regulations, it should be regarded as an announced or prepared change, not as a rule already officially in full application.
How the system has worked so far
UEFA's current model of additional qualifiers is based on a combination of seeding, results from previous stages and the draw. In the rules for Euro 2024, UEFA stated that the playoff is played as a one-match knockout system, with four national teams in each path ranked from first to fourth. Under those rules, the best-ranked national team in a path played the semifinal at home against the fourth-ranked team, while the second-ranked national team hosted the third-ranked team. But for the final, a different mechanism was applied: the host of the decisive match was determined by a draw in advance, before it was known which national teams would actually reach the final.
A similar principle was also applied in the European additional qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup. In its announcement of the draw, UEFA stated that 16 national teams took part in the playoff, including 12 runners-up from European qualifying groups and four national teams that earned the right to participate through the Nations League. In each path there were two semifinal matches, with pairings from different pots, and the seeded teams had home ground in the semifinals. For the final of each path, however, UEFA again held a separate draw that determined in advance which semifinal winner would host the final match.
In practice, this meant that a national team with a better record or a higher status in the draw had no guarantee that it would play the most important match in front of its own supporters. It could secure a more favorable position for the semifinal, but in the final, home advantage depended on the balls in the draw. That very element is now at the center of the debate. Supporters of the change believe that qualifying performance must be valued more strongly all the way to the end of the playoff, while opponents may argue that the current model provided additional uncertainty and a greater chance for national teams that were not among the seeded sides.
What the new rule would change
According to the announced direction of the change, hosting of the playoff final would no longer be determined by a random draw, but would belong to the better-ranked or better-seeded team in the specific playoff path. This would extend the logic from the semifinals to the final match as well. A national team that had earned a better position in the qualifying cycle, the Nations League or UEFA's ranking system would have a clear and measurable reward: if it reached the final, it would play it on its own ground.
UEFA can present such a system as fairer because it reduces the possibility that a better initial status loses value at the moment when the stakes are highest. In the current model, there was a difference between the sporting criterion and the draw: seeding brought an advantage in the semifinal, but not in the final. The new provision would remove that difference and create a more predictable route through the additional qualifiers. From the perspective of national teams, this would mean that every point, group placing or position in the Nations League potentially has more value because it can affect not only the opponent but also the venue of the decisive match.
The change could fit into UEFA's broader trend toward systems in which ranking and previous results are turned into a concrete competitive advantage. In club competitions, an attempt is already visible to give greater value to position in the league phase in the knockout stage, and in national-team football a similar logic appears through the increasing connection between qualifiers and the Nations League. In that sense, hosting the playoff final is not an isolated issue, but part of a broader debate about how much room there should be in the football calendar for the draw, and how much for rewarding previous performance.
Smaller national teams could lose an important opportunity
The greatest controversy is expected around the position of lower-ranked national teams. Under the current model, even when they were not seeded, they could receive by draw the possibility of playing a potential final at home. For associations that less often reach the final stages of qualifying, such an opportunity had great sporting and symbolic value. A home match in a playoff final can mean a full stadium, greater public mobilization, more favorable conditions for the team and significantly greater revenue from organizing the match.
If hosting is automatically tied to the better ranking, lower-seeded national teams will, as a rule, have to go through a harder path. They would first have to win away from home or against a seeded side in the semifinal, and then they might also play the final away from their own stadium. This does not mean that surprises would no longer be possible, but the path to a major tournament for such national teams would be more demanding. The football argument for the change is that such a system is fairer to national teams that previously achieved better results; the political and developmental argument against the change is that smaller associations lose part of the chance that the draw gave them.
The Guardian, in an analysis of UEFA's broader reform, warned that the new ideas are partly being developed under pressure from the need for more attractive and better-balanced matches, but also that smaller national teams could be dissatisfied if the number of opportunities for matches against the strongest opponents or for high-stakes home matches is reduced. Although that analysis referred to the broader qualification system after 2028, the same tension can be seen in the issue of playoff finals. UEFA has to balance the sporting criterion, commercial appeal, the interests of large associations and the developmental role of competitions for smaller football countries.
The reform comes in a broader package of changes
UEFA's Executive Committee confirmed on 20 May 2026 in Istanbul a new concept for men's national-team competitions that should be applied after Euro 2028. According to UEFA's official announcement, the Nations League should move from the current four leagues to three leagues with 18 national teams each from the 2028/29 edition. Each league should be divided into three groups of six teams, and the national teams would play six matches against five different opponents. UEFA states that quarterfinals, the final tournament and promotion or relegation playoffs would remain part of the system.
An even more important change concerns European qualifiers. According to UEFA's new concept, qualifiers should receive a two-tier system: League 1 with 36 national teams from leagues A and B of the Nations League and League 2 with the remaining national teams. In League 1 there would be three groups of 12 national teams, with a draw from three pots, and each team would play six matches against six different opponents. UEFA announced that the best-ranked teams in League 1 groups would secure direct qualification, while the remaining places would be distributed through the playoff, with a guarantee that teams from League 2 also have a qualifying chance.
UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin said in that announcement that the new formats should improve competitive balance, reduce the number of matches without result significance, offer a more attractive competition to fans and, at the same time, not add new dates to the international calendar. The final details, according to UEFA, are to be refined before the next meeting of the Executive Committee in September 2026.
Euro 2028 will remain a transitional competition
Qualifiers for Euro 2028 have a special place because they will be played before the full implementation of the new concept announced for the period after that tournament. In May 2025, UEFA confirmed that Euro 2028 would be held at nine stadiums in the United Kingdom and Ireland and that 24 national teams would take part in the final tournament. The hosts England, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Wales will participate in qualifying, but two places will be reserved for the two best-ranked host national teams that do not qualify through the qualifying group.
According to UEFA's system for Euro 2028, the 12 group winners and the eight best runners-up will secure direct qualification for the final tournament. The remaining places will depend on how many of the hosts' reserved places are used. If both reserved places are used, eight national teams will play in two playoff paths for two places at the tournament. If one host place is used, 12 national teams will play in three paths for three places. If no host place is used, eight national teams will play four two-legged ties, and the winners will qualify for the final tournament.
Such a structure shows how sensitive and changeable the playoff issue is. Depending on the outcome of qualifying and the status of the hosts, additional qualifiers can have different formats, from single-match semifinals and finals to two-legged ties. If the announced change is applied in scenarios with one decisive match, home ground would no longer be a matter of luck, but a consequence of previous ranking.
Why home ground matters so much
In a single knockout match, the differences are often very small. Teams do not have a second match in which they can make up for what they missed, and circumstances such as travel, a familiar pitch, crowd support and pressure on the opponent can have a real impact. In national-team football, an additional factor is the short preparation time. Coaches generally gather players only a few days before the match, so the logistical simplicity of a home fixture can be important for training, recovery and the team's routine.
Home ground also brings a financial aspect. The association that organizes the final match can count on ticket revenue, increased sponsor interest and stronger media visibility. For smaller associations, such a match can be one of the most important events in a multi-year cycle. On the other hand, UEFA can argue that hosting a match of such importance should be a reward for sporting performance, not the result of a random draw. It remains open which exact criterion would be used to determine the better-seeded team: placement in the qualifying group, ranking among runners-up, ranking from the Nations League or a combination of several elements.
What still has to be officially clarified
The most important open question is the timing of implementation. Available official UEFA announcements confirm that the broader system of men's national-team competitions is changing after Euro 2028, while the qualifying model for Euro 2028 had already been separately approved earlier. If the rule on hosting playoff finals is introduced before the full reform, UEFA will have to state clearly whether it applies to Euro 2028, to qualifiers for the 2030 World Cup, to later European qualifiers or to all future playoff systems in which one decisive match is played.
The second open question concerns the definition of the "better-ranked" national team. In older European Championship formats, ranking within a playoff path was linked to the overall Nations League ranking, while in qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup the seeded teams in the semifinals were determined through pots and success in qualifying. In the new two-tier system after 2028, the role of the Nations League will be even more pronounced, but without final regulations it is not possible to claim which criterion will prevail.
A change that alters the calculation of the entire cycle
For coaches and national associations, the announced change has a clear message: the ranking before the playoff could become even more important than before. National teams would no longer play only for entry into the additional qualifiers or for seeded status in the semifinal, but also for the possible organization of the final. This can affect the approach to the final matches of groups, the importance of the Nations League and the way associations plan the entire four-year cycle. Points won in earlier stages could have consequences all the way to the final qualifying match.
For fans, the system would be simpler in one sense: it would be known in advance that the better-seeded national team has home advantage if it reaches the final. At the same time, the drama of the draw itself would be reduced, which has until now been able to completely change the atmosphere around a playoff path. For lower-ranked national teams, this would mean less reliance on luck and a greater need to earn advantage through results before the final stage. For stronger national teams, it would mean greater protection of what they had previously achieved.
If UEFA confirms the announced rule, additional qualifiers will become a system in which advantage is increasingly clearly earned on the field before the playoff itself. This would reduce the influence of the draw, but also change the nature of one of the most dramatic stages of national-team football. The final assessment will depend on the official wording, ranking criteria and the first competitive cycle in which the new rule is applied.
Sources:
- UEFA – official announcement on the draw for the European playoff for the 2026 World Cup and the rules for hosting semifinals and finals (link)
- UEFA – regulations of the European Championship 2022–2024, Article 17 on the playoff system and the draw for the host of the final (link)
- UEFA – official decision on the qualifying system for Euro 2028 (link)
- UEFA – official announcement on the new concept for men's national-team competitions after Euro 2028 (link)
- The Guardian – analysis of UEFA's qualification reform and possible consequences for stronger and smaller national teams (link)