The 2023–24 UEFA Women's Nations League A was the top division of the 2023–24 edition of the UEFA Women's Nations League, the inaugural season of the international football competition involving the women's national teams of the member associations of UEFA. League A culminated with the Nations League Finals in February 2024 to determine the champions of the competition, and which two teams (in addition to hosts France) would qualify for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The results were also used to determine the leagues for the UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying competition.
Format
League A consisted of the 16 top-ranked UEFA members in the UEFA women's national team coefficient ranking, split into four groups of four. Each team played six matches within their group, using the home-and-away round-robin format with double matchdays in September, October, and November to December 2023.[1] The winners of each group advanced to the 2024 UEFA Women's Nations League Finals. The competition also acted as the first phase of the preliminary competition for UEFA Women's Euro 2025, which uses an identical league structure. The fourth-placed team from each group were relegated to League B, taking effect in UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying. In addition, the third-placed teams of League A advanced to the relegation play-offs against the runners-up of League B. The winners of the home-and-away ties entered League A for UEFA Women's Euro 2025 qualifying, while the losers entered League B.[2]
The Nations League Finals took place in February 2024 and were played in a knockout format, consisting of single-leg semi-finals, a third-place play-off, and a final. An open draw determined the pairings and home teams for the semi-final matches and which semi-final would have its teams host the third-place play-off and final. The two best-ranked teams in the Nations League Finals (excluding France) qualified for the 2024 Olympic football tournament, while the winners of the final was crowned as the champions of the UEFA Women's Nations League.[2]England, Scotland, and Wales are not members of the IOC, thus are ineligible to participate in the Olympics, but the results of the England team, by agreement of the Home Nations and FIFA were taken to represent Great Britain's qualification bid for that tournament.[3] As England did not reach the Nations League Finals, Great Britain would not be represented at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
The draw for the league phase took place at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland on 2 May 2023, 13:00 CEST.[5] Each group contained one team from each pot. The draw started with Pot 1 and ended with Pot 4, with drawn teams assigned to the first available group in ascending order from A1 to A4. Due to winter venue restrictions, a group could contain a maximum of two of Sweden, Norway and Iceland.[6]
The draw for the Nations League Finals was held on 11 December 2023.[49] Spain hosted Netherlands and France hosted Germany in the semi-final matches, and the winner and loser of the Spain–Netherlands match hosted the final and third place play-off, respectively.
Times are CET (UTC+1), as listed by UEFA (local times, if different, are in parentheses).
^Italics indicates host for that year, Bold indicates champions
^The two Nations League finalists would qualify for the Olympics. As France was one of the finalists, the other spot was awarded to the winner of the third place play-off.[2]
League ranking
The 16 League A teams were ranked 1st to 16th overall in the 2023–24 UEFA Women's Nations League according to the following rules:[2]
The teams finishing first in their groups were ranked 1st to 4th according to their finish in the Nations League Finals.
The teams finishing second in their groups were ranked 5th to 8th according to the results of the league phase.
The teams finishing third in their groups were ranked 9th to 12th according to the results of the league phase.
The teams finishing fourth in their groups were ranked 13th to 16th according to the results of the league phase.