Thanks to the complex rules of the UEFA, the Republic of Ireland has been placed in a position where they have an incentive to lose their final qualification game for the EURO 2024 against the Netherlands on Saturday. How is this possible? Let’s take a closer look.

The European Football Championship 2024

As the saying goes: “The devil is in the detail” and this is the case here. The European Football Championship in Germany in 2024 will see 24 teams participate, one of which is of course Germany itself as the host. A further 20 teams will be ranked first and second in each of the ten EURO 2024 qualifier groups currently being played out. This leaves three places to fill and for this the UEFA has introduced so-called ‘play-offs’, which will take place between 21 and 26 March 2024.

The play-offs

So, who gets a second chance to qualify for the tournament? Well, this is where things get complicated: twelve teams are going to compete for these three spots. Are they just the ten teams, which came third in their EURO 2024 qualifier groups plus maybe the two best teams that came fourth? No, that would be far too easy.

The UEFA Nations League

Let me introduce the UEFA Nations League, if you haven’t heard of it yet. Do you remember the good old days when outside of European and World Football Championships national teams just played friendlies? Well, those days are over. Today there are Leagues A, B, C and D of the UEFA Nations League; the former three with sixteen teams each, the latter with only seven.

The EURO 2024 play-offs are now made up of the four best teams in Leagues A, B and C according to the ranking at the end of the 2022-2023 season, provided that they have not yet qualified for the European Championship 2024 through the qualifying groups.

Let us now take a look at the League A table:

Out of the 16 teams, only three are outside of the top two of their group at the moment: Croatia, Italy and Poland. What happens now, if there are only three play-off participants from League A? UEFA regulations say the remaining spot goes to the leading team of League D, which is Estonia.[2]

If even less than three teams from League A fail to qualify for the EURO 2024 outright, the remaining spots are filled up by League B teams that miss direct qualification (League B also has four spots for the play-offs to start with):

So, what does this now mean for the Republic of Ireland’s fate for the EURO 2024? Well, first of all, we can all agree things haven’t gone well so far. Direct qualification is now out of the question with them currently ranking fourth in their group, six points behind the Dutch on rank #2 and with only one game to go. But, as The Smith’s sang already in 1986, There is a light that never goes out! The play-offs are still possible, yet for this to become likely it would be helpful if as many teams as possible from the top of the table qualify directly for the EURO 2024, passing on their play-off spots to League B teams that fail to do so (just like Ireland). Also, it would help if as many teams as possible from League B that are ranked above the Republic of Ireland still qualify directly for the EURO 2024, which is already confirmed for Scotland, likely for Serbia and Ukraine, and possible (yet unlikely) for Israel and Iceland.

Netherlands – Republic of Ireland on 18/11/2023

This means that when the Republic of Ireland faces the Netherlands this week in Amsterdam, the Irish should actually LOSE the game, because the more teams from League A of the UEFA Nations League who directly qualify, the better Ireland’s chances are to actually grab a play-off spot. If Greece, which was in League C of the UEFA Nations League, advanced from Group B of the EURO 2024 qualifiers instead of the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland’s last straw would be gone.

So, the question we will all ask ourselves in front of the TV on Saturday is: Are the Irish supporters really going to cheer for the Netherlands? Because given the UEFA’s complicated rules, that is just what they should do. Alternatively, they could also rally behind Iceland and Israel in their games, hoping to push them over the line to further their own prospects.