The UEFA Nations League was announced in 2014 and commenced in 2018. It provided guaranteed matches on what had previously been friendly matches along with a centralised TV contract to ensure equitable financial distribution across all European football associations. Divided into four divisions ("Leagues") initially based on FIFA rankings, each league was then divided into four groups with each team playing each other home and away with promotion and relegation based on final group rankings. Overall tournament rankings then provided a backdoor for entry into the play-offs for "major" tournaments, the FIFA World Cup or UEFA European Championships, for teams that had not qualified through the traditional qualifying groups. At the time of the tournament's initial seeding in December 2017, Northern Ireland were the 21st ranked team in Europe which placed them in League B. Northern Ireland's Record Season Rank Div Rank