UEFA Nations League: Football Table, Fixtures, Winners and African Kick Off Times

The UEFA Nations League is a football competition for the 55 men's national teams of UEFA, Europe's governing body, played every two years since its first season in 2018/19, with the Finals held in odd numbered years. No African team plays in it, since CAF runs African football. South African readers also know football as soccer; France’s Kylian Mbappé has Cameroonian and Algerian family roots, giving the competition a specific African connection.

The competition’s format explains how the four leagues work, how promotion and relegation are decided, how the League A knockouts lead to the Finals, and what each final from 2019 to 2025 looked like. There is also a plain conversion of European evening kick offs into GMT, WAT, SAST and EAT, plus a comparison with AFCON and the CAF qualifiers. Think of it as the friend in the viewing centre who explains the group table before the match starts, so you are not lost when the commentator mentions a relegation play off.

Who Plays in the UEFA Nations League, and Why Do African Fans Watch?

Every one of UEFA's 55 member associations enters a men's team, from the traditional powers to the smallest football nations, and that is the whole field. Teams are placed in four leagues by strength, and promotion and relegation determine movement between editions. The women's game has its own competition, and this hub covers only the men. So, when a reader in Kampala asks whether the Cranes could ever qualify, the answer is no, because Uganda belongs to CAF and the Nations League is closed to every confederation outside Europe.

The reason Africans watch is the players. Fans in Lagos, Nairobi and Johannesburg already know these footballers from the Premier League, La Liga and the Champions League, and an international break simply moves the same stars into national shirts. In my opinion, a Nations League night is the nearest thing to a Champions League evening that football offers while the club season pauses. That is why the screens stay on when the club fixtures stop.

Then there is the family connection, which matters more than any table. France, England, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium regularly pick players with West and East African roots, and France's Kylian Mbappé, whose family background is Cameroonian and Algerian, is the best known example. I always ask what a match means for the Super Eagles, and here the link is indirect: the same window that brings the Nations League also takes Nigerians, Ghanaians and South Africans based in Europe away for their own qualifiers. The squad lists for each window are kept in the data modules, so check them there.

How Do You Read the Nations League Table, Fixtures and Results?

The modules hold everything that changes, and each module explains its standings or schedule. The Uefa Nations League table (some readers call it the log) splits into Leagues A, B, C and D, each with its own groups. So, the first thing to check is which league a team sits in before you judge where it stands. A side leading a League C group may be having a better campaign, in a sense, than a side at the foot of a League A group, because promotion is the prize it is chasing.

The Uefa Nations League fixtures list every match with its league, group, venue and kick off converted to African time zones. Nations League matches arrive in international windows rather than every weekend, with the league phase played first and the knockouts and play offs coming later in the cycle. I would read the fixture list one window at a time, because each team usually plays more than once in a short burst, and a slow start in the first match of a window can be put right in the second.

The Uefa Nations League results show the score, the scorers and the stage, and the table refreshes as each one lands. What a plain score feed will not tell you is what a result does to the places above and below. One win can lift a team into a promotion spot, keep it out of a relegation play off, or settle a knockout place in League A. The competition guide gives that context, so the numbers in the modules carry some meaning rather than sitting there as bare digits.

How Do the Standings Work in Leagues A, B, C and D?

Each group works as a small league in which the teams play each other home and away, and the order is decided on points, the way any league table is. Where teams finish level, UEFA's tiebreakers separate them, and the table module applies those automatically. It helps to remember that every group runs its own race, with no single overall ranking deciding the trophy. A strong team in a weak group and a weaker team in a strong group can finish in the same position, and that is part of the charm when you compare groups side by side.

League A is the top flight and the only league whose teams can win the Nations League. Leagues B and C sit in the middle, and League D is the smallest, built for the nations still climbing. In the 2020/21 edition, Leagues A, B and C each had 16 teams and League D had 7, which adds up to all 55. The first edition in 2018/19 was shaped differently, with 12 teams in League A, 12 in League B, 15 in League C and 16 in League D.

For the individual side of the story, the Uefa Nations League stats collect scorers, assists and discipline across all four leagues. It could be argued that the scoring chart is where African readers find the most to talk about, because players with Nigerian, Ghanaian, Congolese, Cameroonian and Senegalese heritage turn up for several European nations. The stats module updates after every match, so it is the place to settle a debate about who is scoring in this season's league phase.

How Does the Nations League Format Work?

The Nations League gives Europe's national teams competitive matches in the windows that used to be filled mostly with friendlies. A friendly is still useful for a coach trying a new idea, but it carries nothing in the standings; a Nations League match has points, promotion and relegation riding on it. The competition runs over a two year cycle, starting with a league phase in groups and ending with the Finals in an odd numbered year. So, every match in the group stage counts towards something, even for the smallest nations in League D.

The simplest way to picture it is a football pyramid, like the divisions of a domestic league, except that the clubs are countries. Each edition, teams can move up a league if they do well and down a league if they struggle, so the four leagues are reshuffled for the next cycle. That movement is what keeps the lower leagues lively, because a nation that has spent years losing to the giants can instead play opponents of its own level and still have a title of sorts, promotion, to celebrate.

How Do Promotion, Relegation and the League A Knockouts Work?

Group winners in Leagues B, C and D are promoted to the league above. From the 2024/25 edition, the two lowest ranked teams in League C go down automatically. League A and League B group bottom teams are also relegated automatically, while additional movement is decided by promotion and relegation play offs between teams near the bottom of one league and teams near the top of the league below. For a nation on the edge, a play off is a second chance rather than a final verdict, and the results module shows how those ties went once they are played.

Only League A teams can win the trophy. From 2024/25, the group winners and runners up in League A meet in two legged quarter finals, home and away, and the winners go through to the Finals. The Finals have semi finals, a third place match and the final itself, all played close together in one host country. In my opinion, the quarter finals improved the competition, because they give more of the big nations a meaningful knockout tie in the spring before the Finals arrive.

Who Has Won the Nations League, and What Happened in Each Final?

The four editions completed from 2019 to 2025 produced three champions, with Portugal winning twice. Portugal won the first Nations League in 2019, beating the Netherlands 1 to 0 in a final they hosted themselves. France won in 2021, beating Spain 2 to 1 in the final in Italy, which gave a France squad full of players with African roots another trophy to sit beside their 2018 World Cup. Those two finals set the tone early: the trophy goes to the final’s winner, not to the team with the strongest group stage.

Spain won the 2023 Nations League in the Netherlands, beating Croatia 5 to 4 on penalties after a 0 to 0 draw. Then, in 2025, Portugal beat Spain 5 to 3 on penalties after a 2 to 2 draw in the final in Germany, and became the competition's first two time winner. France took third place at those 2025 Finals with a 2 to 0 win over Germany. So, the roll of honour reads Portugal 2019, France 2021, Spain 2023 and Portugal 2025.

If I had to pick one match to explain the competition, it would be that 2025 final. Two nations who know each other well, level at 2 to 2, separated only by a shootout, is the kind of night that settles arguments in a Lagos viewing centre for about a week before the next one begins. It also showed that Spain, champions in 2023, could reach a second straight final, which tells you how consistent the top of League A has been since the competition began in 2018/19.

How Does the Nations League Link to Euro Qualifying?

The Nations League gives teams another route to the European Championship through the Euro play offs, a link that has been in place since the Euro 2020 cycle. The main road to the Euros is still the qualifying groups. But, a nation that falls short there can earn a play off place through how it performed in the Nations League, so a good league phase works a little like an insurance policy.

This matters most for the middle and lower leagues. A team in League C or League D rarely has the squad to finish in the top places of a qualifying group, yet winning its Nations League group can open a door that would otherwise stay shut. In my opinion, this is the cleverest part of the design, because it rewards the smaller nations for playing teams of their own level well, which is a fairer test than asking them to beat the giants every time.

When you read the results module, keep that link in mind. A narrow win in League C may look small on the scoreboard and still carry a team towards a Euro play off spot, while a draw at the top of League A may be enough to secure a quarter final place. Our Uefa Nations League predictions add a call for each match with a probability and a reference price, and they are best read beside the table, so you can see what each result would change.

What Time Do Nations League Matches Kick Off in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and South Africa?

Most Nations League matches kick off in the European evening, which lands in the evening across Africa too, though not at the same clock time in every country. Ghana keeps Greenwich Mean Time all year, so Accra is the earliest of our five. Nigeria is on West Africa Time, one hour ahead of GMT. South Africa is on South African Standard Time, two hours ahead, and Kenya and Uganda share East Africa Time, three hours ahead. None of our five countries changes its clocks, which makes the arithmetic steady on our side.

The moving part is Europe. Central Europe runs one hour ahead of GMT in winter and two hours ahead in summer, switching in late March and late October. So, in winter, a match in Paris or Madrid kicks off at the same clock time as in Lagos, one hour later than Accra, one hour earlier than Johannesburg and two hours earlier than Nairobi or Kampala. In summer, Lagos sits one hour behind central Europe, Johannesburg matches it, and East Africa is one hour ahead.

Take a match that starts at 20:45 central European time as an example. In winter, that is 19:45 in Accra, 20:45 in Lagos, 21:45 in Johannesburg and 22:45 in Nairobi and Kampala. In summer, the same 20:45 start is 18:45 in Accra, 19:45 in Lagos, 20:45 in Johannesburg and 21:45 in East Africa. The table below sets out these conversions, and the fixtures module does the work for you on every listed match.

The practical point for East African readers is that late matches in winter can run close to midnight, so plan the evening around the final whistle as much as the kick off. For West Africans, the summer Finals in June tend to fall at a comfortable early evening hour. Wherever you are, check the fixture against your own zone in the module rather than trusting a European listing, because a time printed for Paris will be wrong in Accra and Nairobi.

How Can You Watch the Nations League in Africa?

Where to watch depends on the broadcast rights in your country, and those rights change from one cycle to the next, so the up to date picture lives in the fixtures module rather than in the competition guide. Each listed match carries the viewing information we hold for Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana and Uganda, and it is refreshed when rights move. If a match shows no listing for your country yet, check again closer to the day, since details are often confirmed late in an international window.

Many readers follow the Nations League the same way they follow the Premier League: on pay television at home, in a viewing centre or bar on the bigger nights, and on a phone for the live stream or the score updates. The results page fills in afterwards for anyone who had to miss it.

How Does the Nations League Compare with AFCON and the CAF Qualifiers?

The Nations League is Europe's answer to a question Africa answers differently. CAF runs the Africa Cup of Nations and the African World Cup qualifiers, and those competitions use groups and knockouts, but they have no permanent divisions with promotion and relegation. When the Super Eagles, Black Stars, Bafana Bafana, Harambee Stars or the Cranes play a qualifier, the stakes are a place at a tournament. A Nations League match carries an extra layer, because a team is also fighting to stay in, or climb out of, its league.

Perhaps the closest African parallel is the pressure of an AFCON qualifying group, where every point counts and a missed chance in one window can be recovered in the next. The difference is that a European nation which finishes badly drops a league and meets weaker opponents next time, which is a reset rather than a punishment. It could be argued that a divisional system would suit African football too, though the travel distances across the continent would make the calendar a bigger puzzle than Europe's.

Where Did the Nations League Trophy and Competition Come From?

UEFA launched the Nations League with its first edition in 2018/19, aiming to give its members competitive matches in place of many of the friendlies that used to fill international windows. The competition was built to include every one of the 55 member associations, not only the strongest, which is why the four league structure matters so much. From the start it was tied to European Championship qualifying through the play offs, and that link has held since the Euro 2020 cycle.

The trophy itself is made of sterling silver, weighs 7.5 kg and stands 71 cm tall. It was designed to represent all 55 UEFA member associations, a fitting idea for a competition that includes everyone, and it was unveiled at the draw in Lausanne in 2018. For a reader who has only seen the cup lifted on television, those numbers help: it is roughly the height of a small child and weighs 7.5 kg.

The editions completed from 2019 to 2025 established the competition in the calendar. Portugal lifted the trophy first in 2019 and again in 2025, France won in 2021 and Spain in 2023, so the early years belong to the Iberian sides and France. If you are new to it, start with the table to see which league your favourite European team sits in, then open the fixtures to find its next window in your own time zone.