Seedings for EURO 2012 qualifiers announced

Malta is among one of the bottom six seeds for the UEFA EURO 2012 European Championship qualifying draw which will take place at the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Poland on Sunday 7 February 2010.
The fifty-one teams competing in the qualifying competition have been allocated to six pots on the basis of their position in the UEFA national team rankings on completion of the qualifying matches for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. For the calculation of the national team coefficients, the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualifying competition and final tournament, UEFA EURO 2008 qualifying competition and final tournament and the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying competition were taken into consideration.
The 51 teams will be drawn into nine groups: six groups of six teams and three groups of five teams. Reigning European champions Spain are seeded in Pot 1.
Pot 1: Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, England, Croatia, Portugal, Russia, France, Russia.
Pot 2: Greece, Czech Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, Serbia, Turkey, Denmark, Slovakia, Romania.
Pot 3: Israel, Bulgaria, Finland, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Pot 4: Slovenia, Latvia, Hungary, Lithuania, Belarus, Belgium, Wales, FYR Macedonia, Cyprus.
Pot 5: Montenegro, Albania, Estonia, Georgia, Moldova, Iceland, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein.
Pot 6: Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, MALTA, Faroe Islands, Andorra, San Marino.
The qualifying matches will be played in accordance with the international match calendar between September 2010 and November 2011 on Fridays/Saturdays and Tuesdays. The nine group winners and the best runners-up will qualify for the final tournament and join hosts Poland and Ukraine. The eight remaining runners-up will contest home-and-away play-off matches on 11/12 and 15 November 2011 and the four winners of the play-off matches will also qualify for the final tournament. 
The final tournament is scheduled to be played between 08 June and 01 July 2012.