2016–17 UEFA Europa League
Solna hosted the final | |
Tournament details | |
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Dates | Qualifying: 28 June – 25 August 2016 Competition proper: 15 September 2016 – 24 May 2017 |
Teams | Competition proper: 48+8 Total: 155+33 (from 54 associations) |
Final positions | |
Champions | Manchester United (1st title) |
Runners-up | Ajax |
Tournament statistics | |
Matches played | 205 |
Goals scored | 565 (2.76 per match) |
Attendance | 4,494,039 (21,922 per match) |
Top scorer(s) | Edin Džeko (Roma) Giuliano (Zenit Saint Petersburg) 8 goals each |
Best player(s) | Paul Pogba (Manchester United)[1] |
The 2016–17 UEFA Europa League was the 46th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the eighth season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League.
The
Manchester United qualified for the
As the title holders, Sevilla qualified for the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League. Having won the last three Europa League tournaments, Sevilla were unable to defend their titles as they reached the Champions League knockout stage, where they were eliminated by Leicester City in the round of 16.
Association team allocation
A total of 188 teams from 54 of the 55 UEFA member associations were expected to participate in the 2016–17 UEFA Europa League (the exception being Kosovo, whose participation was not accepted in their first attempt as UEFA members). The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:[6]
- Associations 1–51 (except Liechtenstein) each had three teams qualify.
- As the winners of the 2015–16 UEFA Europa League, Sevilla qualified for the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League; the 2016–17 UEFA Europa League berth they would otherwise have earned for finishing 7th in the 2015–16 La Liga was vacated and not passed to another Spanish team.
- Associations 52–53 each had two teams qualify.
- Liechtenstein and Gibraltar each had one team qualify (Liechtenstein organises only a domestic cup and no domestic league; Gibraltar as per decision by the UEFA Executive Committee).[7]
- Moreover, 33 teams eliminated from the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League were transferred to the Europa League.
The UEFA Executive Committee approved in December 2014 changes to the rewards given according to the Respect Fair Play ranking, and starting from the 2016–17 season, the three Fair Play berths were no longer allocated to the Europa League.[8]
Association ranking
For the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2015 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2010–11 to 2014–15.[9][10]
Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Europa League, as noted below:
- (CL) – Additional teams transferred from Champions League
- (EL) – Vacated berth due to Europa League title holders playing in Champions League
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- Notes
- ^ Kosovo (KOS): Kosovo became a UEFA member on 3 May 2016.[11] UEFA decided that their domestic cup winners could participate in the 2016–17 UEFA Europa League only if they could meet licensing criteria under article 15 of the UEFA Club Licensing & Financial Fair Play regulations, which would be confirmed following the assessment made by the UEFA administration within the deadline of 31 May 2016.[12] However, Kosovo's entry, Prishtina (as the winners of the 2015–16 Kosovar Cup), was denied by UEFA in June due to the club failing licensing requirements, and also because the club could not provide a suitable stadium and UEFA did not allow them to play their home matches in a foreign country.[13][14]
Distribution
In the default access list, Sevilla enter the third qualifying round (as the seventh-placed team of the 2015–16 La Liga).[6][15] However, since they qualified for the Champions League as the Europa League title holders, the spot which they qualified for in the Europa League third qualifying round is vacated, and the following changes to the default allocation system are made:[16][17]
- The domestic cup winners of association 18 (Cyprus) are promoted from the second qualifying round to the third qualifying round.
- The domestic cup winners of associations 27 (Serbia) and 28 (Slovenia) are promoted from the first qualifying round to the second qualifying round.
Teams entering in this round | Teams advancing from previous round | Teams transferred from Champions League | |
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First qualifying round (96 teams) |
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Second qualifying round (66 teams) |
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Third qualifying round (58 teams) |
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Play-off round (44 teams) |
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Group stage (48 teams) |
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Knockout phase (32 teams) |
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Redistribution rules
A Europa League place is vacated when a team qualifies for both the Champions League and the Europa League, or qualifies for the Europa League by more than one method. When a place is vacated, it is redistributed within the national association by the following rules (regulations Articles 3.03 and 3.04):[6]
- When the domestic cup winners (considered as the "highest-placed" qualifier within the national association with the latest starting round) also qualify for the Champions League, their Europa League place is vacated. As a result, the highest-placed team in the league which have not yet qualified for European competitions qualify for the Europa League, with the Europa League qualifiers which finish above them in the league moved up one "place".
- When the domestic cup winners also qualify for the Europa League through league position, their place through the league position is vacated. As a result, the highest-placed team in the league which have not yet qualified for European competitions qualify for the Europa League, with the Europa League qualifiers which finish above them in the league moved up one "place" if possible.
- For associations where a Europa League place is reserved for the League Cup winners, they always qualify for the Europa League as the "lowest-placed" qualifier. If the League Cup winners have already qualified for European competitions through other methods, this reserved Europa League place is taken by the highest-placed team in the league which have not yet qualified for European competitions.
Teams
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:[18][19][20]
- CW: Cup winners
- 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, etc.: League position
- LC: League Cup winners
- RW: Regular season winners
- PW: End-of-season European competition play-offs winners
- CL: Transferred from Champions League
- GS: Third-placed teams from group stage
- PO: Losers from play-off round
- Q3: Losers from third qualifying round
Notably two teams took part in the competition that were not playing in their national top division, Zürich (2nd tier) and Hibernian (2nd tier).
- Notes
- ^ Albania (ALB): Partizani were transferred to the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League second qualifying round following the exclusion of Skënderbeu by UEFA for match-fixing.[21]
- Inter Baku would have qualified for the Europa League first qualifying round as the runners-up and fourth-placed team of the 2015–16 Azerbaijan Premier League respectively, but Zira failed to obtain a UEFA licence as the club has existed professionally for fewer than three seasons,[22][23] and Inter Baku were excluded from participating in the 2016–17 European competitions by the UEFA Club Financial Control Body.[24] As a result, the berths were given to the fifth-placed team Kapaz and the sixth-placed team Neftçi Baku.