Andy Carroll and West Ham qualified for the 2015-16 UEFA Europa League through their fair play record.

Most Premier League squads have spent the past fortnight globetrotting on lucrative preseason tours while finding time to work on fitness levels. West Ham United, however, will play their fifth competitive game of the season on Thursday, in a Europa League qualifier against Romanian club Astra Giurgiu, having already seen off the mighty duo of Andorrans Lusitanos and Birkirkara of Malta.

European football is a wonderful bonus for West Ham in their final season at Upton Park, before their three-mile journey to the Olympic Stadium next summer. It also means they'll be the answer to an obscure pub quiz question in a decade's time, because the Hammers are the last Premier League team to seal European qualification because of their fair play record. Starting next season, cash prizes replace European places.

On one hand, it's a shame. The fair play table has always been one of those obscure, fairly pointless but enduring trivialities of the Premier League, like the Dubious Goals Panel, the rules regarding how many international appearances are sufficient for a work permit, or Shola Ameobi. You were aware of its existence, but you never understood precisely how it worked, or why anyone really bothered with it. Still, it produced a decent story every couple of seasons.

On the other hand, it's about time. The fair play table's aims are noble, although in practice it simply doesn't make sense. At worst, it rewards entirely the wrong type of club.

Traditionally, a fair play table was calculated in a very straightforward manner, by totting up the red and yellow cards shown to each club over the season, devising a simple points system, and working out which club troubled the referee the least.

However, things became more complex. In recent years, teams have been awarded scores in various categories: the traditional "red and yellow cards," plus "positive play," "respect toward opponents," "respect toward the referee" and "behaviour of the team officials." All of these were judged by assessors, who mark some categories out of seven, others out of six, while booking points are subtracted from a starting score of 10. These scores are averaged out over 38 games and put into a league table.

The detail is bewildering. "Positive play" seems a particularly subjective category, with the further explanation not particularly helpful. Teams are awarded high points here if, for example, they use "attacking tactics, not defensive," which shouldn't really be the subject of any official scoring, and surely wasn't the original idea of the fair play league. You can be defensive yet perfectly fair.

Teams are also encouraged to "continue to push for goals when in a winning position" and to attempt to "gain time" -- a specific example of which is "bringing the ball back into play quickly even if the team is in a winning position." Frankly, this simply seems like a naive approach to football, and it's peculiar that this type of thing, however unlikely and indirectly, can actually gain you a Europa League place.

All this seems odd, but things become particularly problematic when it comes to deciding which nations are awarded the three additional Europa League slots. In basic terms, it's simply the three countries with the best score, but there are peculiar aspects to this, too. Each country's "fair play season" runs from May 1 to April 30 every year, which simply isn't a time frame that makes sense for the majority of major European leagues.

But even the comparison itself is fundamentally pointless, because refereeing standards vary hugely across European leagues, and therefore the production of cards differs significantly. In fact, in some southern European countries, for example, an official who allows lots of physical contact between players is referred to as an "English" referee.

The difference is supported by the numbers. In last season's Premier League there were 1,363 yellow cards, whereas La Liga had a whopping 2,036 -- which means, without even considering the other factors, there's little chance of Spanish clubs ever winning a fair play spot.

That would be entirely justifiable if Spanish football was extremely dirty. But that's not the situation; in fact, it's the opposite. Spanish referees are extremely strict, discouraging opponents from committing hard tackles. It means talented and technical players with flair can shine, and possession play is widely popular. But while the teams all collect lots of bookings because of the refereeing standards, La Liga is erroneously considered a dirty league.

Consequently, the European fair play table literally discriminates against the leagues in nations where fair play is encouraged. The physical leagues always soak up the fair play spots: England, Sweden and Norway have finished top of the table 19 of the last 21 years. None of the three countries is known for particularly "fair" football.

Ironically, the teams that deserve the fair play spots are arguably the "cleanest" teams from the "dirtiest "countries. In Spain, for example, with their strict refereeing standards, third-fairest side Real Sociedad should qualify (Barcelona and Real Madrid are in the top two spots) for the Europa League with 88 bookings and one red card. Incidentally, that figure would have made them the second-most-cautioned side in the Premier League, behind Sunderland, which summarises the futility of inter-country comparisons.

However, among all the technicalities of the process, the damning aspect here is more obvious. Any system that considers Sam Allardyce's West Ham side a shining example of clean play, positive football and statesmanlike managerial behaviour has clearly gone wrong somewhere.

Teams that qualify through the fair play table can go on a decent European run -- over the years, Aston Villa, Rayo Vallecano and Manchester City have all progressed to the quarterfinal stage. Just to reach that point, however, West Ham must play an incredible 18 matches -- effectively half a league campaign. Those extra games will cause fatigue, and it's not difficult to imagine the club bowing out of Upton Park with a whimper.

Nevertheless, let's enjoy this while we can. Like flags on the halfway line, circular red cards and contested drop-balls, European qualification through the fair play league will soon be a distant memory. It won't be long before we vaguely recall with amazement that clubs once qualified for Europe, in part, because some unknown blokes in the stand were awarding them points for how quickly they retrieved the ball for a throw-in.

Michael Cox is the editor of zonalmarking.net and a contributor to ESPN FC. Follow him on Twitter @Zonal_Marking.