UEFA secretary and Ebbe Schwartz the first president. The current president is Aleksander Čeferin, a former Football Association of Slovenia president, who was elected as UEFA's seventh president at the 12th Extraordinary UEFA Congress in Athens in September 2016, and automatically became a vice-president of the world body FIFA. UEFA was founded on 15 June 1954 in Basel, Switzerland after consultation between the Italian, French, and Belgian associations. The European football union began with 25 members; that number doubled by the early 1990s. Until 1959 the main headquarters were located in Paris, and later in Bern. In 1995, UEFA headquarters were
2018 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA) 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA) The European section of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification acted as qualifiers for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which is being held in Russia, for national teams which are members of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). Apart from Russia, who qualified automatically as hosts, a total of 13 slots in the final tournament were available for UEFA teams. The qualifying format was confirmed by the UEFA Executive Committee meeting on 22–23 March 2015 in Vienna. The qualification process started on 4 September 2016, almost two months after UEFA Euro 2016, and