Club licensing here to stay

UEFA has produced a report looking back over four years of its European club licensing scheme.

Five chapters
The report, entitled Here to Stay – Club Licensing, is designed to provide a clear picture of what the club licensing system is, what it is not and how it functions. It is structured into five chapters – including, among other things, the scheme's main characteristics, the roles of the member associations and their leagues as the licence granters, and of the club as the licence applicants, UEFA's role, and the licensing decisions taken over the first four years.

Quality standards
The club licensing system is based on a series of defined quality standards (covering the areas of sporting, infrastructure, personnel, administration, legal and financial matters) which must be fulfilled in order for a club to be admitted to any UEFA competition. The same minimum criteria apply to all clubs and national associations. The system represents a significant step forward in improving transparency and governance of clubs and demonstrates that football can govern itself.

Clear picture
The data contained in the report, the first of its kind, principally comes from the UEFA member associations, and has been collected during the first four years of experience. The information – which has been pulled together and compiled with crosschecks made to several sources – offers a valuable insight into the results achieved by the club licensing system since the implementation of the first criteria for participation in the 2004/05 season.

Click here to read the club licensing report in English.
Click here to read the club licensing report in French.
Click here to read the club licensing report in German.
Click here to read the club licensing report in Russian.