UEFA
UEFA is also known by its full name of the Union of European Football Associations and it is the administrative body for European association football. It was founded in the 1950s in Basel, Switzerland and the current UEFA President is Michel Platini.
Competitions run by UEFA are some of the biggest in the world and the body controls eh prize money and regulations as well as the media rights to the matches. Some countries that are not technically part of Europe have chosen to be governed by UEFA such as Georgia, Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia and Kazakhstan.
There are six continental confederations of FIFA and UEFA is the biggest of them all. The majority of the world’s biggest clubs are governed by the body as teams such as Chelsea, Real Madrid and AC Milan boast some of the world’s highest paid players.
In 2010, the World Cup allows 32 teams to compete and 13 of these were allocated to UEFA national teams including England, Germany, Spain and Italy. Despite a bad World Cup display by many bog teams in 2010, UEFA still boasts 12 out of 20 of the top teams according to FIFA world rankings.
The UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League are the two most fiercely competitive leagues run by UEFA. English teams like Manchester United work extremely hard to win the UEFA Champions League as it is considered to be the title given to the best of the best on Europe.