UCFA Champions League

The UCFA Champions League (also known as the Champions League) is a national team football competition organised by the United Cybernations Football Associations (UCFA) which started in October 2007 for any team that wished to participate. The tournament is now being held every two months. The Prize, the UCFA Champions League Cup with $3,500,000 prize money is a prestigious football trophy. $1,500,000 was added after the Winterfell incident.

The UCFA Champions League is not affiliated with any other football competition and is the premier football competition of Cybernations today.

Arcadian Empire is the current Champion, defeating Paranganea 1-0 at the Estadio Libertad in the Final version of 2007.

History
The tournament was inaugurated in October 2007, and is the brainchild of Emperor Power of the Arcadian Empire who wanted his national team to play in a Cup Competition. However, the Legion was not interested, as they were not interested in the sport, so he decided to make his own Championship.

However, with the huge national cost of the UCFA Champions League. The Arcadian Champions League was ended.

The tournament has grown bigger, from 7 nations from UCFA 1 to 17 in UCFA 2, but it has fallen to 11 in UCFA 3, but is still a considerable number.

A spin-off has been created, the Champions of Champions Tournament where the winners of the tournament in the past year compete again to see which team was the best of that year. The competition is also known as the UCFA Super Cup.

UCFA Champions League One
The first tournament was a small tournament by any means, only seven nations, but in that seven nations was still a huge number. UCFA had only 3 legal sign ups, and when they decided that was too small, they let 4 late comers in to make the tournament seem bigger.

Originally, only the Arcadian Empire, United Protectorates and Transvaal signed up within the one week sign up period. However, UCFA deemed that number was too small, and let four late comers in, Eastern Australia, Nigras, Costa Libertad and IrishLand.

The seven competitors battled through a tough group stage, all in one group. Arcadian Empire finished first, and battled Nigras, who finished fourth in the home away playoff. IrishLand who came second, faced Transvaal.

Arcadian Empire drew 0-0 with Nigras in the first leg, and after a scoreless second leg, along with extra time. The game refused to make any goals. The penalty shootout arised and Nigras one it 4-2, thus allowing them to the Final.

In the other fixture, Transvaal comfortably defeated IrishLand at home 3-1. The score was 1-1 at half time and two goals in the second half sealed the win. In the second leg, Transvaal managed to draw and were allowed to enter the final.

Over 88 000 people watched the Final entertinament live. The Sunset Game, the third-place playoff between Arcadian Empire and IrishLand ended in a penalty shootout win 4-3 for the Arcadians securing 3rd place.

In the Final, televised live to all participating countries and other countries, Nigras defeated Transvaal 2-1 in the Final even though it seemed the Final was going to Transvaal after an early goal, but a double goal showing by one Nigras player secured the win and allowed Nigras to hold the first ever UCFA Champions League Trophy. The money was given to Nigras and was used to rebuild the war ravaged country.

UCFA Champions League Two
The second tournament doubled the number of teams participating. It was the second monthly edition, and was highly anticipated. New features such as $500,000 extra in prize money, 20 more points for the first team and substitutes and substitutions to be added to the Champions League.

In total, 16 nations signed up, with 4 original teams. The sixteen teams were split into four groups each, with one original heading each group.

The group stage ranged from being very exciting (group 3, every team had a chance at all matchdays) to very dull and obvious who was going to win (group 1.) Upsets occured and Transvaal and Costa Libertad were knocked out.

In the home-away playoffs, Arcadian Empire defeated Neo Japan 4-3 on aggregate (1-2, 3-1), Winterfell defeated Bushcraftboyz 4-0 (4-0, 0-0), Paranganea defeated Ghuxalia 3-1 (3-0, 0-1) and MacLand defeated Nigras 1-0 (0-0, 1-0.)

In the semi-finals, Winterfell defeated the Arcadians on away goals, 2-2a on aggregate (2-2, 0-0) and because of this, the Away Goals Rule was scrapped. The other semi-final also went to the away goals rule decision, Paranganea defeating MacLand 4-4a (1-2, 3-2).

The Final was watched by over 30 countries world wide and the Staatspresident Botha Stadium was completely full at 58 000 people. In the third place playoff, Arcadian Empire defeated MacLand 2-1.

In the Final, it was 0-0 at half time between Winterfell and Paranganea. Both teams scored in the second half to bring the game to extra time, but 5 minutes into extra time, Winterfell scored and kept the lead for a 2-1 win after extra time.

Winterfell Incident
After Winterfell won the UCFA 2 cup, the $1,500,000 was to be delivered to the nation. However, no one accepted the prize money after a week, so it was put to a vote to decide what to do with the money.

The most votes was for the option (add money to UCFA 3 prize pot), to increase UCFA 3's prize money from $2,000,000 standard to $3,500,000.

UCFA 3
The third tournament began with a pre-cup, won by Costa Libertad defeating Dun Carrig. The first ever qualifying stage saw Ashwinder defeat Surrey Empire 4-2 on aggregate to see them go into the second group, with 4 participants.

Arcadian Empire and Paranganea, powerhouses in the competition finished 4th and 5th in the group stage, guaranteeing them a spot in the knockout stage, barely. Arcadian Empire was to face the group 2 winner and Paranganea was to face Nigras, the group winner.

In the second group, newcomers Ashwinder shocked the footballing world by defeating every single opponent at least once and finishing top of the group, a group which Transvaal was tipped to win. Transvaal finished last on 3 points.

The UCFA Cup was established, a secondary competition for the second-tier clubs, where the last placers in each group along with the 4 losers of the quarter final playoffs to contend. Neo Japan, Transvaal, Nigras, Dun Carrig, Laputa and Ashwinder contested the UCFA Cup, where Nigras and Laputa were eliminated in the 1st round. Neo Japan was knocked off in the semi-final as well as Ashwinder by new rivals Transvaal who beat them on the penalty spot 3-0. Neo Japan beat Ashwinder 2-1 for 3rd place and Dun Carrig defeated Transvaal 3-2 to win the UCFA Cup and a chance to be called UCFA Champion after a match with the CL winner.

Paranganea, Costa Libertad, MacLand and Arcadian Empire advanced to the semi-finals. Paranganea defeated Costa Libertad 3-1 on aggregate, while Arcadian Empire got a place in the final with a 3-2 win on aggregate. Costa Libertad won the third place playoff in front of their home crowd of 120 000 3-2 beating Dun Carrig. Arcadian Empire took its chance and took it well to become World Champions for the first time ever after a defensive error let the Arcadian's go through with the only goal of the match for a 1-0 win.

The UCFA Champion fixture is to be played on January 5 to determine the UCFA Champion, between Dun Carrig and Arcadian Empire. The Champion of Champions tournament is to be held in Nigras in January.

Qualification
There is no qualification as of yet, as you qualify by signing up to be part of it. It is planned that later, qualification will take place in alliances, to play in the final stages.

There are unlimited spaces in the Champions League, and signing ups are closed after the deadline, 7 days after it started, or after the 24th nation has signed up.

The Stages
The tournament consists of several stages and starts with the group stage, where all nations compete in a double round robin group stage, each team playing every other team once at their home stadium and once at their opponents stadium.

The top teams in each group (usually two or four) will then play a home-away playoff, the winners of the home-away playoffs will reach the Final. The Final is only one match, with extra time then penalties if the scores are drawn.

The away-goals rule was enforced, but is now not enforced after a 75% majority was reached in a scrappy poll. Now, drawn aggregate scores will be seperated by a penalty shootout.

UCFA 1

The stages in the first UCFA Champions League was where all seven nations were put in one group, and played a double round robin group stage. The four top nations then reached the semi-final home-away playoffs, where the winners advanced to the Final, which was only one match played at a predetermined stadium, the Stadio Imperator.

UCFA 2

The second Champions League had a slightly different format. The 16 teams were placed into 4 groups of 4 each, which played a double-round-robin stage. The top two in the group reached the quarter-final-home-away-playoff, where the winners on aggregate reached the semi-final, which was played in the same fashion as the quarter final. The winners on aggregate reached the Final.

UCFA 3

The third Champions League had a different format again. This season's league was to be more of a UEFA Champions League by incorporating the stages of the competition. Qualifiers, group, home-away playoff and final.

The 9 of 11 UCFA 3 nations automatically "qualified" with the 2 new nations playing in a qualifiers round to gain the 10th spot in the group stage. The winner of the playoff on aggregate joined the other 9 nations to play in a group stage.

The top 8 qualify for the home-away playoff which is played in the same fashion as the qualifiers, with the winners advancing to the semi-finals, and the winner of those reaching the Final.

Champions League Finals
The Champions League Final is the most prestigious event in World Football, and the only one.

Finance
The winning team is given $4,000,000 to be given to them by aid at the end of the Final.

However, as nations grow and grow richer, the Arcadian Empire as decided that the price will increase, hoping that by February 2008, the prize will be at least $5,000,000, currently it is at $4,000,000 for the February competition.

There have been many stories of how the aid has been used, in war-ravaged Nigras, when they won the first ever UCFA Champions League, the aid was used to rebuild the country. UCFA has now been hailed a "great organisation who combines the best of humanitarianism and football."

The Champions of Champions edition gives away $4,000,000 for the winner. The UCFA Cup winner gets nothing, as of yet as well as the Pre-Cup winner. The UCFA Champion gets nothing as of yet either.

Editions of the UCFA Champions League
November 2007 Edition (2) - Winner: Winterfell

October 2007 Edition (1) - Winner: Nigras