26.06.2014, 09:40
Qualification draw streamed live

NEWS REPORT: All fans can follow how three qualification groups of the VELUX EHF Champions League will be defined by the Thursday's draw live

Qualification draw streamed live

The new 2014/15 season of the VELUX EHF Champions League virtually starts on Thursday, 26 June with its first event, as twelve national title holders line up for the qualification draw at the EHF Office in Vienna (14.00 hrs).

Two newcomers

All teams, including the last season's EHF Cup Finals participant HCM Constanta and two newcomers in the Europe's elite competition Junior Fasano from Italy and Targos Bevo HC from the Netherlands, are divided into four pots.

The qualification will be played on 6 and 7 September in three tournaments, the winners of which will be awarded with a place in the group phase.

The matches of each tournament will be played in one venue with two semi-finals on Saturday followed by finals on Sunday. In the semi-finals, teams from Pot 4 meet teams from Pot 1 and teams from Pot 3 face teams from Pot 2.

The Thursday's draw will determine both the semi-final pairings and the right to organise the tournaments.

Pot 1: HC Motor Zaporozhye (UKR), HC Meshkov Brest (BLR), HCM Constanta (ROU)
Pot 2: RK Vojvodina (SRB), FC Porto (POR), Haslum HK (NOR)
Pot 3: Tatran Presov (SVK), Alpla HC Hard (AUT), Besiktas JK (TUR)
Pot 4: Targos Bevo HC (NED), Hubo Initia Hasselt (BEL), Junior Fasano (ITA)

Next step

While the winners of the qualification groups will book tickets to the group phase, the second and third ranked team of each group will carry on in the EHF Cup Qualification Round 3 and the fourth ranked side to the EHF Cup Qualification Round 2.

The group phase draw with 21 teams directly seeded for this phase follows on Friday, 27 June at the Gartenhotel Altmannsdorf in Vienna, the other European club competitions will be drawn on Tuesday, 22 July.

Where to follow

All fans can enjoy an extensive coverage of the draw event. The live streaming of the draw followed by interviews with clubs' representatives will be available on YouTube as a test run (not available in Germany on this occasion), as seen below, while the live ticker will show all the results of the draw real-time on www.eurohandball.com. The pairings will be also tweeted live on the official @ehfcl channel.

TEXT: EHF / cor