U17 contenders await draw

By Luke Williams in Potsdam

The draw for the first qualifying round of the 2004/05 UEFA European Under-17 Championship will take place in Potsdam tomorrow from 17.15CET.

Youth conference
The draw ceremony forms part of the three-day UEFA Youth Conference in the German city. Fifty-one member associations are taking part in the competition, with 48 teams in the hat for the first-round draw.

Seeded countries
A further three seeded countries - Spain, England and Hungary - will enter the tournament in the second qualifying round. Italy qualify automatically for the final tournament as hosts.

Two pots
The 48 teams in today's draw will be divided into two pots. Pot A will contain the 24 countries ranked from 4 to 27 in the UEFA youth coefficient rankings list - which is compiled using results from 2000/01, 2001/02 and 2002/03 - while Pot B contains associations ranked from 28 to 51.

Draw procedure
The following draw procedure will then be used: two balls will be drawn from Pot A into Group 1. The team drawn first will be placed in the first position in the group and the team drawn second into the second position. Two balls will then be drawn from Pot B. The country drawn first will be placed in the third position in Group 1 and the country drawn second will occupy fourth position. This procedure will then be repeated for the remaining eleven groups.

Qualification procedure
The 12 group winners and 12 group runners-up, as well as the best third-ranked team from all 12 groups, will join the three seeded countries in the second round. The seven group winners in this round will then join Italy at the final tournament in summer 2005.

2004/05 UEFA European Under-17 Championship draw:
Pot A: (U17 coefficient ranking in brackets)