UEFA.com works better on other browsers
For the best possible experience, we recommend using Chrome, Firefox or Microsoft Edge.

Route to Regions' Cup mapped

Spain's next UEFA Regions' Cup representatives must outdo sides from Germany, Greece and Malta if they are to make it to the finals of the 2010/11 edition of Europe's top amateur competition.

Grigoriy Surkis conducts the 2010/11 UEFA Regions' Cup draw
Grigoriy Surkis conducts the 2010/11 UEFA Regions' Cup draw ©UEFA.com

Europe's amateur footballers will earn their piece of the spotlight during the seventh UEFA Regions' Cup tournament, which has opened for the 2010/11 season with the preliminary and intermediate round draw at UEFA's headquarters in Nyon on Friday.

Thirty-nine UEFA member associations have entered the latest competition. The entrants will be regional selections who win a national qualifying competition with the exception of Malta and San Marino, who enter national amateur teams. All qualifying groups are played as one-venue mini-tournaments from next autumn.

Twelve associations were drawn in the preliminary round and the three group winners and two best runners-up will progress to the intermediate round, joining 27 contenders exempt to that stage. The eight intermediate round group winners will progress to the final tournament scheduled for summer 2011, with the hosts picked from among the qualifiers. Castilla y León AMA, representing Spain, won the last final tournament in 2009 in Croatia. The next Spanish representatives will begin in intermediate round Group 1, facing hosts Malta and selections from Germany and Greece.

The draw was made by UEFA Executive Committee member and UEFA Youth and Amateur Football Committee chairman Grigoriy Surkis, and the committee's first vice-chairman Jim Boyce. "The UEFA Regions' Cup has been a very successful competition for UEFA," Boyce said in his draw address. "It gives players who might never have the chance of playing in European competition the opportunity to play and make new friends."

The UEFA Regions' Cup came into being following a decision by the then UEFA Committee for Amateur Football of the time to launch the idea of a new continental amateur competition in 1996. Amateur players comprise the vast majority of Europe's footballers, and the latest competition is sure to unearth a treasure trove of talented footballers who play each match for the love of the game.

2010/11 UEFA Regions' Cup preliminary round (hosts tbc)
Mini-tournaments to be staged between 01/08/10 and 30/09/10
Group 1
Turkey
Wales
Croatia
England
Group 2
Armenia
Israel
Hungary
Romania
Group 3
FYR Macedonia
Sweden
Northern Ireland
Estonia

2010/11 UEFA Regions' Cup intermediate round draw
Hosts in bold
Mini-tournaments to be staged between 01/08/10 and 30/04/10
Group 1
Group 2 (hosts tbc)
Malta*
Scotland
Germany
Portugal
Greece
Switzerland
Spain
Belgium
Group 3
Group 4
Republic of IrelandSlovenia
Italy
Winner preliminary round Group 3
San Marino*
Winner preliminary round Group 2
France
Winner preliminary round Group 1
Group 5
Group 6
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Second best runners-up preliminary round
Serbia
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Best runners-up preliminary round
Lithuania
Group 7
Group 8
Poland
Ukraine
Russia
Azerbaijan
Finland
Latvia
Belarus
Moldova

*Malta and San Marino will field national amateur teams; other nations field regional selections.

Selected for you