Dublin (AFP) – A unique European Championships in 2020 that will be hosted in 12 cities across the continent will begin to take shape when the qualifying draw takes place in Dublin on Sunday at 1100GMT.
How does it work?
UEFA’s 55 nations will be split into five groups of six teams and five groups of five with the top two from each section becoming the first 20 teams to qualify.
What about the Nations League?
Some sides have already guaranteed themselves the safety net of a playoff to qualify via UEFA’s new Nations League competition in March 2020, but only should they fail to make the top two in their qualifying group.
Results from the Nations League also determined the seedings for Sunday’s draw with the 55 countries split into seven pots.
Why seven pots of seeds?
The 10 top seeds are split into two pots with the four nations to have qualified for the Nations League finals (England, Switzerland, Portugal and The Netherlands) in their own pot to guarantee they are in a five-team group so they don’t have to play any qualifiers when the Nations League finals take place in June.
Who are the other top seeds?
Pot one will contain world champions France, Belgium, Croatia, Italy, Poland and Spain.
Who are in the other pots?
Germany’s relegation from their Nations League group means they drop into pot two alongside Iceland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Austria, Wales, Czech Republic.
Pot 3 – Slovakia, Turkey, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Serbia, Finland, Bulgaria and Israel
Pot 4 – Hungary, Romania, Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Cyprus, Estonia, Slovenia, Lithuania and Georgia
Pot 5 – FYR Macedonia, Kosovo, Belarus, Luxembourg, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Gibraltar and the Faroe Islands
Pot 6 – Latvia, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Malta and San Marino
When are the matches played?
All qualifying matches will be played between March and November 2019 with double headers in March, June, September, October and November. Those sides involved in the Nations League finals won’t have any qualifiers in June.
When and where does the tournament take place?
The 12 host cities are: Amsterdam, Baku, Bilbao, Bucharest, Budapest, Copenhagen, Dublin, Glasgow, London, Munich, Rome and Saint Petersburg.
The tournament will take place between June 12 and July 12 2020.
