2025–26 UEFA Women's Nations League B explained

Tourney Name:UEFA Women's Nations League B
Year:2025–26
Dates:League phase:

Promotion/relegation matches:
February – March 2026
Num Teams:16
Prevseason:2023–24
Nextseason:2027–28

League B is the second division of the 2025–26 UEFA Women's Nations League, the second season of the international football competition involving the women's national teams of the member associations of UEFA. The results will also be used to determine the leagues for the European qualifying competition for the 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup.

Format

League B consists of the teams ranked 17th to 32nd, according to the Women's Euro 2025 qualifying overall ranking,[1] split into four groups of four. Each team will play six matches within their group, using the home-and-away round-robin format with double matchdays in February, March, April, and October 2025.[2]

The competition will also act as the first phase of the qualifying competition for the 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup, which will use an identical league structure. The winner of each group will be promoted to League A, and the fourth-placed team from each group, along with the worst-ranked third-placed team, will be relegated to League C for the 2027 Women's World Cup qualifying competition.In addition, the runners-up and remaining third-placed teams will advance to the promotion/relegation play-offs: [3]

Seeding

Teams were allocated to League B according to their overall ranking[1] after the conclusion of the UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying league phase. Teams will be split into four pots of four teams, based on their ranking.

The draw for the league phase is expected to take place at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland in December 2024 or January 2025. For political reasons, Belarus and Ukraine (due to Belarusian involvement in the Russian invasion of Ukraine), cannot be drawn in the same group.

+ Pot 1
Team
13
14
15
16
+ Pot 2
Team
21
22
23
24
+ Pot 3
Team
25
26
27
33
+ Pot 4
Team
34
35
36
37

Groups

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Women's European Qualifiers 2024 Overall League Rankings .
  2. Web site: 2023/24 UEFA Women's Nations League: How it works . . 18 April 2023 . 1 May 2023.
  3. Web site: Regulations of the UEFA European Women's Championship including UEFA Nations League and European Qualifiers . . 7 February 2023 . 7 February 2023 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230207171941/https://documents.uefa.com/api/khub/maps/ZZT5rg~97mziHwZJcgpxHA/attachments/ua8BbyEvGGF8Opxov~Zi9w/content?Ft-Calling-App=ft%2Fturnkey-portal&Ft-Calling-App-Version=4.1.6&filename=20230125_Regulations_WEURO_2025_EN.pdf . 7 February 2023.