All You Need To Know About the Ireland WNT's UEFA EURO 2025 Qualifiers Draw

The Draw for the qualifiers for the 2025 UEFA Women's European Championships takes place on Tuesday at 12pm with Ireland set to discover their League A opponents.

Ireland Head Coach Eileen Gleeson will be present at the Draw in Nyon, Switzerland where the journey to the finals tournament in 2025 will start to take shape.

Having clinched promotion from League B in the UEFA Nations League last year, Ireland will be in Pot 4 in League A where the top two teams will qualify automatically for EURO 2025 with the third and fourth-placed teams entering into a Play-Off series later in the year.

There is also a knock-on affect for the 2025-27 Nations League with the winners, runners-up and third-placed teams of League A staying in League A, while the the fourth-placed team will be relegated to the next league.

Ireland are aiming to qualify for the European Championships for the first time and will be targeting a place in Switzerland next year.

WNT Camp on film 🎞️👇#COYGIG pic.twitter.com/SwqqjEZTUX

— Ireland Football ⚽️🇮🇪 (@IrelandFootball) March 2, 2024

How The Draw Works

In the league stage, which runs from April to July, teams are split into three leagues based on their UEFA Women's Nations League rankings:

The 16 teams ranked 1st to 16th enter League A.
The 16 teams ranked 17th to 32nd enter League B.
The 19 teams ranked 33rd to 51st enter League C.

Across the three leagues, teams will be split into 13 groups:
League A, containing four groups of four teams.
League B, containing four groups of four teams.
League C, containing four groups of four teams, and one group of three teams.

League A
Pot 1 contains the fourth best-ranked teams, i.e. the teams ranked 1st to 4th
Pot 2 contains the four teams ranked 5th to 8th
Pot 3 contains the four teams ranked 9th to 12th
Pot 4 contains the four teams ranked 13th to 16th

Pot 1: Spain, France, Germany, Netherlands,
Pot 2: England, Denmark, Italy, Austria
Pot 3: Iceland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway
Pot 4: Republic of Ireland, Finland, Poland, Czechia

We go again 👊

Thanks for all your support as always!

Next up: Women’s European Qualifying draw on March 5th 👀 pic.twitter.com/SgH1S22ZGH

— Ireland Football ⚽️🇮🇪 (@IrelandFootball) February 28, 2024

How Qualifying Works

League Phase
In qualifying, as per the league stage of the Nations League, teams compete in groups of four or three teams (League C) and over six matchdays between April and July, with each team playing one home match and one away match against all the other teams in their group.

For qualifying itself, the top two teams in each League A group will gain places in the July 2025 finals alongside hosts Switzerland (who will compete in League B although their automatic qualification is assured). The remaining seven spots will be decided by two rounds of play-offs in October and November/December.

Play-Offs
The first round of the play-offs is split into two paths. In one path, the teams finishing third and fourth in League A will play the five group winners and three best-ranked runners-up in League C. The eight winners progress to the second round.

In the other first round path, the four group winners and two best-ranked runners-up in League B will be drawn into six ties against the remaining two runners-up and four third-placed teams in League B. The six winners progress to the second round.

In the second round, the teams from both paths come together and will be drawn into seven ties, with seeding for the seven highest-ranked teams based on the European Qualifiers overall league rankings. The seven winners progress to the final tournament.

The play-off paths will be adjusted as necessary to take into account the performance of Women's EURO hosts Switzerland, who will compete in League B but are guaranteed a slot in the final tournament.

If Switzerland finishes as a League B winner runner-up or in third place, the best-ranked fourth-placed team of League B will complete the round 1 path 2 play-off line-up and the draw seeding for the six ties will be adjusted accordingly.