Flight Information

UEFA have Released the Smaller Groupings Of Potential Opponents

UEFA have released their groupings for the third qualifying draws this morning, which start at 11am for the Champions League, before moving onto the Europa League (12pm) then ending with the Conference League (1pm).

As in previous years, I have produce an ‘away travel guide’ for each Scottish club. For each of the potential opponents I include the expected:

• stadium and capacity

• away allocation

• nearest airports accessible from Scotland

• example fares

Stadium, capacity and especially air fares are all subject to change!

Away allocation is based on the 5% minimum that UEFA mandates teams to offer to the opposition.

This number may be more, especially if it is a team that doesn’t sell out their stadium, or it may be less, especially if the configuration of the stadium reduces total capacity on European nights.

In this round, this early flight information is only really helpful for Rangers fans - as they are the only one of the four that don’t enter in QR2, and so they are the only side that know for definite they will play in this tie. The other three won’t know if they will either still be in Europe after QR2 (Motherwell and Hibs) or which tournament they’ll be in after QR2 (Hearts).

DON’T BOOK TRAVEL UNTIL YOUR CLUB CONFIRMS THE DATES

UEFA can change match dates and kick-off times where clubs share a stadium, are based in the same city or play within 50km of each other. For example, the last time Hibs and Hearts were both due to play at home on a Thursday, Hibs v Aston Villa was moved to 17:45 on Wednesday, while Hearts v PAOK remained on Thursday.

Both were in the Conference League, but Hearts had priority because they had finished higher in the Premiership the previous season. For qualifying clashes, UEFA gives priority first by competition, with the Europa League ahead of the Conference League, then by domestic league finish last season.

UEFA will first try to keep the original home-and-away order by moving one match to another day that week (e.g. matches moved from Thursday to Tuesday or Wednesday). If that is not possible, the order of a tie can be reversed.

This is only likely to affect qualifiers, as in the league phase, UEFA usually avoids clashes when setting the home and away schedule.

Hearts

Champions League

Europa League