Scottish clubs to face harder Europa League path next season

Next season, the Scottish Cup winner — or the Premiership runner-up if the cup winner also takes the league title — will enter the Europa League at the first qualifying round stage.

That route, known as the non-champions path, is considerably tougher, featuring teams that qualified through league position in countries such as Belgium, Turkey, the Czech Republic and Greece. It can also include sides dropping down from the Champions League after failing to advance there. This season those clubs were Olympiakos, Sparta Prague, Sturm Graz and Union Saint-Gilloise.

This time round, Hearts were placed in the non-champions path and were eliminated by Benfica, while a seeded Rangers side went out at the same stage against Jagiellonia Bialystok.

Because Celtic and Rangers' five-year coefficient is falling as a result of Scottish clubs' weaker recent results, both are likely to go into next season's draw unseeded, raising the chance of facing a side from one of Europe's stronger leagues.

A silver lining

There is one piece of good news. Should the Scottish league champions drop out of the Champions League into Europa League qualifying, they will be matched against another club that has also fallen from the Champions League.

This season Celtic entered the Champions League at the play-off round, which guaranteed them a place in the Europa League's league phase regardless of the outcome. Next season, however, Scotland's lower coefficient means the champions will instead start in the second qualifying round and will need to win three consecutive ties to reach the Champions League.