2014–15 UEFA Europa League
44th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The 2014–15 UEFA Europa League was the 44th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the sixth season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League.
Tournament details | |
---|---|
Dates | Qualifying: 1 July – 28 August 2014 Competition proper: 18 September 2014 – 27 May 2015 |
Teams | Competition proper: 48+8 Total: 162+33 (from 54 associations) |
Final positions | |
Champions | Sevilla (4th title) |
Runners-up | Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk |
Tournament statistics | |
Matches played | 205 |
Goals scored | 548 (2.67 per match) |
Attendance | 4,066,128 (19,835 per match) |
Top scorer(s) | Alan (Red Bull Salzburg) Romelu Lukaku (Everton) 8 goals each |
← 2013–14 2015–16 → |
The 2015 UEFA Europa League Final was played at the Stadion Narodowy in Warsaw, Poland,[1] with Spanish side and title holders Sevilla defeating Ukrainian side Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk 3–2 to win a record fourth title.[2]
This season was the first where clubs must comply with UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations in order to participate.[3] Moreover, this season was the first where a club from Gibraltar competed in the tournament, after the Gibraltar Football Association was accepted as the 54th UEFA member at the UEFA Congress in May 2013.[4] They were granted one spot in the Europa League,[5] which was taken by College Europa, the runners-up of the 2014 Rock Cup.
Starting from this edition, the UEFA Europa League winners automatically qualify for the subsequent UEFA Champions League season even if they do not qualify for the Champions League through their domestic performance.[6] Therefore, the winners of this tournament qualify for the 2015–16 UEFA Champions League. They are guaranteed to enter at least the play-off round, and since the group stage berth reserved for the Champions League title holders will not be used (the winners of the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League are guaranteed to qualify for the group stage through domestic performance), they will be elevated to enter the group stage via this berth.[7]
On 17 July 2014, the UEFA emergency panel ruled that Ukrainian and Russian clubs would not be drawn against each other "until further notice" due to the political unrest between the countries.[8] Another ruling centred in regional instability was also made where Israeli teams were prohibited from hosting any UEFA competitions due to the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict (whilst the ruling ended a short time after the war, all the country's sides were eliminated before it ended).[9] The rules regarding suspension due to yellow card accumulation were also changed such that all bookings expired on completion of the quarter-finals and were not carried forward to the semi-finals.[10] Moreover, this was the first season in which vanishing spray was used.[11]