Executive Committee's St Petersburg decisions

The UEFA Executive Committee, chaired by UEFA President Michel Platini, has ratified the regulations for both the 2013–15 UEFA European Under-21 Championship and the European qualifying competition for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup.

Meeting in St Petersburg, Russia on Monday, the UEFA Executive Committee also admitted four European national associations to the UEFA Coaching Convention: Azerbaijan (Pro level), Austria (A Youth level), Belarus (Pro level) and France (A Youth level). The convention aims to protect the coaching profession and smooth the way for the free movement of qualified coaches in accordance with European law.

In addition, the committee admitted three national associations to the UEFA Grassroots Charter: Bulgaria (one-star level), Spain (three-star level) and Belgium (four-star level). The charter, created in 2004, is designed to support the UEFA member associations in their grassroots activities.

The provisions of the UEFA Referees' Convention have also been updated and restructured, and were approved by the committee. They reflect the future goals of the convention, including updating requirements, greater emphasis on fitness monitoring and standardising the education of grassroots referees. To date, there are 49 full members and one partial member of the convention.

The Executive Committee has decided that the commercial rights management of its national team competitions will be handled by a company exclusively dedicated to this task. Further details related to the agreement with the company, CAA Eleven, will be provided in a separate media release later this week.

The committee has admitted Gibraltar as a provisional member of UEFA as from today, 1 October 2012. This follows a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in August 2011. A decision on the admission of the Gibraltar Football Association (GFA) as a full member of UEFA will be taken by the XXXVII Ordinary UEFA Congress in London in May 2013.

The next meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee will take place in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 6 December 2012.