Women's EURO group stage draw coming soon

The lineup for the UEFA Women's EURO 2013 qualifying group stage draw in Nyon at 14.00CET on Monday is complete following Armenia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia's progress from the preliminary round and the seedings have been confirmed.

That pair join 36 teams given a bye to the group stage, which will run for 12 months from September 2011, with matches on Wednesdays/Thursdays and Saturdays/Sundays. Monday's draw will be conducted by UEFA Executive Committee member and chairman of the UEFA Women's Football Committee, Mircea Sandu, together with UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino and UEFA Women's EURO 2013 ambassador Hedvig Lindahl.

The teams will be drawn into three groups of six teams and four groups of five, from which the winners and best runners-up will qualify direct for the finals alongside hosts Sweden. The six remaining runners-up will contest home-and-away play-off matches on 20/21 and 24/25 October 2012, with the three winners of these matches also qualifying. The 12-team finals will be played in July 2013.

For seeding purposes, the 38 teams have been allocated to five pots according to their position in the UEFA women's coefficient rankings. Due to the risk of suspension by FIFA of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Football Federation (NFSBiH), Bosnia and Herzegovina have automatically been drawn in sixth position in Group 1 in order to avoid the possibility of a five-team group being reduced to four.

Among the top seven seeds in Pot 1 are holders Germany, former champions Norway, 2009 runners-up England, that trio's fellow FIFA Women's World Cup qualifiers France, plus Italy, Denmark and Finland. All the rest of the UEFA Women's EURO 2009 qualifiers – Ukraine, Russia, the Netherlands, Iceland – are in Pot 2, while three sides that lost in the play-offs last time are in Pot 3, namely the Czech Republic, the Republic of Ireland and Slovenia.

Media representatives wishing to attend the draw are kindly requested to email media@uefa.ch by Friday 11 March. The draw will be transmitted live on UEFA.com.

Seeding pots
Pot A: Germany (holders), Norway, England, France, Italy, Denmark, Finland

Pot B: Russia, Netherlands, Iceland, Spain, Ukraine, Scotland, Czech Republic

Pot C: Switzerland, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Slovenia

Pot D: Hungary, Serbia, Portugal, Greece, Slovakia, Romania, Wales

Pot E: Bulgaria, Northern Ireland, Turkey,  Israel, Estonia, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Armenia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

The full explanation of the calculation system used for the UEFA national team coefficients can be found in Annex I of the Regulations of the UEFA European Women's Championship, 2011–13 competition: http://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/Regulations/competitions/Regulations/01/55/42/07/1554207_DOWNLOAD.pdf