The Union of European Football Associations (French: Union des associations européennes de football) is the administrative and controlling body for European football. It is almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA (usually pronounced /juËˈeɪfÉ™/ ew-AY-fÉ™).
UEFA represents the national football associations of Europe, runs Europewide national and club competitions, and controls the prize money, regulations and media rights to those competitions. Several national football associations which are geographically in Asia or mostly in Asia belong to UEFA rather than the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). These nations are Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Israel, Cyprus, Russia and Azerbaijan (Israel and Kazakhstan are former AFC members). Cyprus chose to be classed as a European football nation - it had the choice of Europe, Asia or Africa.
UEFA is the biggest of six continental confederations of FIFA. Of all the confederations, it is by far the strongest in terms of wealth and influence over the global game. Virtually all of the world's top players play in European leagues in part due to the salaries available from the world's wealthiest football clubs, particularly in England, Spain, Italy and Germany. Many of the world's strongest national sides are in UEFA. Of the 32 available spots in the 2006 FIFA World Cup, 14 were allocated to UEFA national teams, and currently 14 of the top 20 teams in the FIFA World Rankings are UEFA members.
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