ISTANBUL
The 2016 UEFA European Championship qualifying draw will be held in the French city of Nice on Sunday, with title holders Spain one of the nine top seeds in the draw.
All 54 UEFA member countries will enter the competition, as the European Qualifiers will be made up of eight groups of six teams and one of five teams.
The nine group winners an runners up - and the best third-placed team from all the groups - will qualify directly for the final tournament which will be held in France.
The eight remaining third-placed teams will contest play-offs to determine the last four qualifiers for the 24-nation finals in France.
The countries have been divided into six seeding pots based on their UEFA national team records, which take into account results from qualifying and the final tournament of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, UEFA Euro 2012, and 2014 World Cup qualifying.
Gibraltar will be debuting in the qualifiers, whose seeding pots are as follows:
Pot 1: Spain (holders), Germany, Netherlands, Italy, England, Portugal, Greece, Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Pot 2: Ukraine, Croatia, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary, Republic of Ireland
Pot 3: Serbia, Turkey, Slovenia, Israel, Norway, Slovakia, Romania, Austria, Poland
Pot 4: Montenegro, Armenia, Scotland, Finland, Latvia, Wales, Bulgaria, Estonia, Belarus
Pot 5: Iceland, Northern Ireland, Albania, Lithuania, Moldova, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Cyprus
Pot 6: Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Faroe Islands, Malta, Andorra, San Marino, Gibraltar
* Hosts France qualify directly for the final tournament and therefore will not be in the draw.
The European Qualifiers will run from September 2014 to October 2015 and final tournament in France is planned to be held between 10 June–10 July 2016.
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