St Johnstone first to learn their European fate as draw is held in Nyon

The Europa and Champions League draws take place in Nyon from 12pm today©SNS Group

St Johnstone will become the first to learn their possible European fate today, as the preliminary rounds of the Europa League and Champions League are drawn.

The Perth side enter the Europa League in the second qualifying round of the draw being held in Nyon at 1.30pm.

The Saints will play the winners of a first round match, with some big names already in the hat, or one of the seeded teams which enters at the second round stage.

Among the seeded teams in the initial round are Dutch giants Twente Enschede, Poland’s Lech Poznan, Rosenborg of Norway and Sweden’s Elfsborg.

Joining them in possibly being drawn to face St Johnstone in the second round draw are Young Boys of Bern, Legia Warsaw, Bulgarians Levski Sofia and Red Star Belgrade.

In the first round, drawn at 12pm, the 74 teams are split evenly into seeded and unseeded then pulled from the hat. The two balls are placed in another bowl and the first name pulled out will play the first leg at home.

In the second round the ties from the first qualifier are allotted a seeding based on the higher co-efficient of the two teams. That will denote them as either seeded or unseeded, no matter who wins the tie.

The 80 teams are then divided again into eight groups of ten – five seeded and five unseeded – for the second round draw. The ties will be played over July 19 and 26.

Dundee United enter the Europa League in the third qualifying round, which will be drawn on July 20, while Hearts will find out their opponents in the play-off round on August 10. Neither team is likely to be seeded for their draws.

The first and second round draws of the Champions League also take place today. Celtic and Motherwell both enter qualifying in the third round, which will be drawn on July 20.

Motherwell, who enter through the ‘non-champions route’ can only face Dinamo Kiev, Panathinaikos, FC Copenhagen Fenerbahce.

Celtic’s ‘champions route’ can change depending on the results in the first two qualifiers. Possible opponents, if the seeded teams progress as expected, include Debrecen of Hungary, Maribor who have defeated Rangers and Hibernian in recent years, and Slask Wroclaw of Poland.

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