The UKU competition structure varies a little depending on the division.  All of our divisions hold a UKU National Championships.  Additionally, the outdoor season in the Open, Women and Mixed divisions also have the UKU Tour; and in the Open and Women divisions there is also the annual European Ultimate Championship Series.

The following statements attempt to describe the high level goals of each competition:

UKU National Championships (All divisions)

• Competition to crown the UK National Champions
• Should be open and available to all UK clubs.  "Open to all" should be achieved through a minimal number of qualification rounds - i.e. it is expected that there would be a National Finals with only a limited number of places available
  • In 2016 we took decision to allow Irish teams to play at the combined UK Nationals / EUCR-W event from 2017 onwards as the IFDA and EUF Championship Series Committee requested that Ireland rejoin the West region.  
• Does not necessarily need to rank teams other than as required to decide the winners and any positions being used as qualification for later events (e.g. international events)
• The UKU's primary “showcase event” – we will aim to build a spectator base and spend more effort on publicising this event outside the ultimate community

UKU Ranking Events (Club Outdoor Open, Women, Mixed only)

• From 2019 onwards, there is a NEW club outdoor competition structure in place. 
• We are going to continue the move to “break up” some of the larger, old Tour events with a view to providing and encouraging more smaller, “local” events.  To do this we are defining two “tiers” of ranking events.
  • The “tier” does NOT correspond directly to the competitive level of the teams, and it is intended that when there are no “Tier One” tournaments, that the strongest teams will choose to attend “Tier Two” tournament(s).
• Regionals-Nationals will stay at the same point in the calendar in 2019, and will feature North and South Regionals in all three divisions.
• We will retain an official UKU National Rankings list.  The scoring system will be updated - in particular to make sure that it copes better with teams competing at different events of varying strength at the same time.
  • Regionals & Nationals will both also become ranking events - i.e. teams will score ranking points based on their results at Regionals and Nationals. 
  • The rankings will be used as part of the entry criteria to some “Tier One” events, and will be used as the basis for seeding at most ranking events. 

• There will be separate entry allocation criteria for the different tiered events to ensure that the different types of event cater for the different types of player base.

  • NEW Club Outdoor Event Entry Procedure 

European Ultimate Championship Series

• Annual elite European club competition - should be the pinnacle of club competition in most years
• Provide an agreed structure in terms of dates to the climax of the club ultimate season in Europe
• Push the top European teams to higher level to help meet the demands of competing against the top teams from the rest of the World - esp. North America
• The structure of the series - with Regional qualifiers (EUCR) - aims to provide strong European competition for clubs that fall just outside the qualification places for the Finals