Through The Back Door?

Last updated : 19 February 2007 By Jim Bonner
Whilst the main target of our season now has to be to finish in the top 6 of the Premiership, there are other means of getting into Europe should we fail to finish 6th or above.

We already know that if the FA Cup Final is contested by two teams that finish in the top 6 then finishing 7th will be good enough to qualify for the UEFA Cup. The draw for the quarter-finals kept Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United away from each other so that is only good news for us.

Should we manage to balls up finishing 7th with a favourable Cup Final then there's always the option of entering the Intertoto Cup. The lowest ranked Premiership team who doesn't qualify for Europe is granted entry into this competition if they wish to do so. So that's a backup plan if Harry wants Pompey in Europe next season.

But there's one method of getting into the UEFA Cup that is hardly talked about: The UEFA Fair Play award.

UEFA award three places in the UEFA Cup to fairest teams of the fairest nations. The fairest team of the fairest nation who hasn't qualified for Europe automatically gets a place whilst two other teams from the fairest nations get drawn at random.

According to Actim, we are currently the fourth fairest team in the Premiership, with 38 points in the fairplay table. Liverpool are top, but they are 99.9% certain to have qualified for Europe anyway leaving Reading and Villa above us on 37 points. (The less points you have, the higher up the table you are. Unsurprisingly, Blackburn are at the bottom.)

UEFA do take other things into account such as behaviour of fans and players, but these things are trivial compared to the card count. With only a single red card all season we're doing quite well, so it's possible that we could qualify for the UEFA Cup via the "back door" so to speak.

As it is though, only 6th place will do at the moment.