Home Nations and Republic of Ireland set to learn make-up of Euro 2024 qualifying group tables; England and France are unseeded after disappointing Nations League campaigns; follow the draw live on Sky Sports News or via Skysports.com from 11am on Sunday October 9
Sunday 9 October 2022 12:33, UK
The draw for the 2024 European championship qualifying campaign takes place at the Festhalle exhibition centre, Frankfurt, on Sunday October 9 and here we explain all you need to know about the process and how to follow it.
There will be 53 teams drawn into 10 groups: seven groups of five teams (Groups A-G) and three groups of six teams (Groups H-J) with the six seeding pots having already been confirmed after the recent UEFA Nations League phase.
Teams play each other home and away in a round-robin system. The qualifiers will take place from March to November 2023, with the top two in each of the 10 groups progressing to the finals in June and July 2024.
Meanwhile, the three remaining spots will be completed with the teams that qualify through the play-offs in March 2024.
Germany, the team of the EURO 2024 host association, qualify automatically for the final tournament and are therefore not taking part in the qualifying draw.
The four Nations League finalists - Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Croatia - will be placed in a special pot to ensure they are in a five-team group, meaning they will be free to play in the finals in June 2023.
England are not among the top seeds, joining Wales and Scotland in pot two, Republic of Ireland are in pot three while Northern Ireland are in pot five.
France are also among the dangerous unseeded teams after a poor Nations League campaign.
UEFA Nations League pot (4): Netherlands*, Croatia*, Italy*, Spain*
Pot 1 (6): Denmark, Portugal, Belgium, Hungary, Switzerland, Poland
Pot 2 (10): France, Austria, Czech Republic, England, Wales, Israel*, Bosnia and Herzegovina*, Serbia*, Scotland*, Finland.
Pot 3 (10): Ukraine, Iceland, Norway, Slovenia, Republic of Ireland, Albania, Montenegro, Romania, Sweden, Armenia
Pot 4 (10): Georgia*, Greece*, Turkey*, Kazakhstan*, Luxembourg, Azerbaijan, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Faroe Islands, North Macedonia
Pot 5 (10): Slovakia, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Belarus, Lithuania, Gibraltar, Estonia*, Latvia*, Moldova, Malta
Pot 6 (3): Andorra, Liechtenstein, San Marino
*indicates team who have already secured Euro 2024 play-off spot at least
Russia have been excluded from the qualifying draw for the 2024 European Championship with the national team still banned from all competition until further notice following the country's invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, for political reasons, Gibraltar and Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo and Serbia and Kosovo cannot be paired together in the same group.
There is also a winter venue restriction meaning some countries cannot be drawn in the same section so as to avoid games being called off due to adverse conditions.
So, only two of the following nations can be in the same qualifying group - Belarus, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway.
And there is also a restriction over excess travelling whereby the likes of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Iceland can only be placed in a group with one other listed country to avoid having to undertake long journeys for matches.
The first round of qualifiers takes place between March 23-25, 2023, while the final matches are on November 19-21, 2023.
However, the four Nations League finalists will not be in action on either matchday three or four as they will be competing in the finals of that tournament.
Each country that won their Nations League group make it automatically into the play-offs, unless they progress to the tournament itself by finishing in the top two of their qualifying group.
In that situation, the next best nation in the respective league will take their play-off place, with this decided by the following criteria: position in the group, points and goal difference.
The draw for the play-offs takes place in November 2023, with the play-off semi-finals and finals being played between March 21 and 26, 2024.
The final tournament draw will take place in December 2023 at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.
The teams will be seeded in accordance with the overall European Qualifiers rankings. Germany will be automatically seeded into pot 1 as hosts, and placed in position A1.
The three play-off winners will not be known at the time of the draw but will be placed into pot 4 for the draw.
The opening game of Euro 2024 is June 14, 2024 with the final taking place on July 14, 2024 at the Olympiastadion, Berlin.
The draw gets underway at 11am on Sunday October 9. You can follow the actual draw by various means, either on Sky Sports News, our live blog on www.skysports.com/football, or via a live stream.
