The 2025 UEFA Women's Nations League will be the second season of the UEFA Women's Nations League, an international women's football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the member associations of UEFA. The league phase of the competition will be played between February and June, with the finals tournament taking place between October and December. The results also determine the leagues for the FIFA Women's World Cup 2027 qualifying competition.
Format
The competition will begin with the league stage, featuring the national teams split into three leagues (A, B, and C) according to the Women’s European Qualifiers overall phase rankings (based on the Women's Euro 2025 qualifying overall ranking, taking into consideration promotion/relegation at the conclusion of that competition).[1] Leagues A and B feature 16 teams in four groups of four teams, while League C consists of the remaining competition entrants split into groups of three or four teams. The teams in each group play against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format.
The four group winners of League A advance to the Nations League Finals, consisting of two semi-finals, a third place play-off, and a final, all played over two legs (this differs to the previous edition where all the Nations Leagues Finals matches were single-legged).[2] An open draw will determine the pairings and order of legs for the semi-final matches, as well as which semi-final pairing will have its teams host the first leg of the third-place play-off and final.[2]
In addition, the competition features promotion and relegation, taking effect in Women's World Cup 2027 qualifying (which uses an identical league structure). The group winners of Leagues B and C are automatically promoted, while the fourth-placed teams in Leagues A and B, as well as the lowest-ranked third-placed team in League B, are automatically relegated. Promotion/relegation play-offs will also be held on a home-and-away basis, taking place in parallel with the Nations League semi-finals, to determine which of the other teams will be promoted, relegated or remain in their respective leagues. The third-placed teams of League A play the runners-up of League B, while the three best-ranked third-placed teams in League B play the three best-ranked League C runners-up. The teams from the higher leagues are seeded, and play the second leg at home.
In all two-legged ties, the team that score more goals on aggregate is the winner. If the aggregate score is level, extra time will be played (the away goals rule will not apply). If the score remains level after extra time, a penalty shoot-out will be used to decide the winner.[2]
Tiebreakers
Tiebreakers for group ranking
If two or more teams in the same group are equal on points on completion of the league phase, the following tie-breaking criteria are applied:[2]
Higher number of points obtained in the matches played among the teams in question;
Superior goal difference in matches played among the teams in question;
Higher number of goals scored in the matches played among the teams in question;
If, after having applied criteria 1 to 3, teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the teams in question to determine their final rankings.[a] If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 11 apply;
Superior goal difference in all group matches;
Higher number of goals scored in all group matches;
Higher number of away goals scored in all group matches;
Higher number of wins in all group matches;
Higher number of away wins in all group matches;
Lower disciplinary points total in all group matches (1 point for a single yellow card, 3 points for a red card as a consequence of two yellow cards, 3 points for a direct red card, 4 points for a yellow card followed by a direct red card).
Position in the Women's European Qualifiers overall phase ranking.[1]
Notes
^When there are two or more teams tied on points, criteria 1 to 3 are applied. After these criteria are applied, they may define the position of some of the teams involved, but not all of them. For example, if there is a three-way tie on points, the application of the first three criteria may only break the tie for one of the teams, leaving the other two teams still tied. In this case, the tiebreaking procedure is resumed, from the beginning, for those teams that are still tied.
Criteria for league ranking
Individual league rankings are established according to the following criteria:[2]
Position in the group;
Higher number of points;
Higher goal difference;
Higher number of goals scored;
Higher number of goals scored away from home;
Higher number of wins;
Higher number of wins away from home;
Lower disciplinary points total (1 point for a single yellow card, 3 points for a red card as a consequence of two yellow cards, 3 points for a direct red card, 4 points for a yellow card followed by a direct red card).
Position in the Women's European Qualifiers overall phase ranking.[1]
When ranking teams in League C, due to differing group sizes, the results against the fourth-placed teams are not considered when comparing teams placed first, second, and third in their respective groups.[2]
Criteria for overall ranking
After the conclusion of all group matches, the overall league rankings are established as follows:[2]
The 16 League A teams are ranked 1st to 16th according to their league rankings.
The 16 League B teams are ranked 17th to 32nd according to their league rankings.
The League C teams are ranked 33rd onwards according to their league rankings.
The UEFA Women's Nations League overall phase rankings are established after the conclusion of the promotion/relegation play-offs, and are used to determine the starting positions and seeding of the teams in Women's World Cup 2027 qualifying. The order of the teams in the overall phase rankings is based on the overall league rankings, with the following modifications:[2]
The automatically promoted teams are ranked above teams from lower leagues that were promoted after their promotion/relegation matches
The automatically relegated teams are ranked below teams from higher leagues that were relegated after their promotion/relegation matches
Schedule
Below is the schedule for the 2025 UEFA Women's Nations League.[3]
The leagues were formed according to the Women’s European Qualifiers overall phase rankings,[1] and were seeded into pots based on the same rankings.[3][2]
Gibraltar and Liechtenstein entered the tournament for the first time, having not entered in the previous edition. This will be both women's teams' first official competitive international tournament.[4][5][6]
The draw took place on 7 November 2024 at 13:00 CET in Nyon, Switzerland.[3]
Teams were drawn from their seeding pots into groups for each league, starting with League C, then League B, and finally League A. In each league, all teams were drawn from Pot 1 and assigned to groups in ascending order until the pot was empty, then the draw continued with Pot 2 and so on.[3]
For political reasons, Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as Belarus and Ukraine, could not be drawn in the same group. Due to excessive travel restrictions, Kazakhstan could not be drawn into a group containing more than one of Andorra, Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, or Malta.[3]
The results of each team's league rankings will used to calculate the overall league rankings using the ranking criteria. These rankings, taking promotion and relegation into consideration, will be used to establish the overall phase rankings which will determine the leagues and seeding for the upcoming 2027 Women's World Cup qualifying competition.[2]
First match(es) will be played: 21 February 2025. Source: UEFA
^Due to differing group sizes in League C, results against fourth-placed teams are not considered when comparing teams placed first, second, and third in their respective groups.[2]
