Entries and seedings for new UEFA Futsal Cup season
Baku, July 1 (AZERTAC). A record 49 clubs have entered the 2013/14 UEFA Futsal Cup, and 45 of them will learn their destiny in the preliminary and main round draws, streamed live at 14.00 CET on 3 July.
Holders Kairat Almaty are among a record 49 clubs in the running for the 2013/14 UEFA Futsal Cup - and will be one of four teams excused the draw for the preliminary and main rounds at 14.00CET on 3 July in Nyon, which will be made by former Spanish international Kike and streamed live on UEFA.com/ Kairat won the title in Tbilisi in April and, as one of the top four seeds, get a bye to November's elite round, along with the side they beat in the final, MFK Dinamo, plus Spanish champions FC Barcelona and Portugal’s Sporting Clube de Portugal. In total, 29 clubs (ranked 21-49) will start the competition in the preliminary round, with 16 more (ranked 5-20) entering for the main round.
The 29 teams beginning in the preliminary round, played from 27 August to 1 September, will be drawn into five groups of four and three of three. Every group will contain one side each from the four seeding pots, ranked by coefficient, other than the three-team sections which will have one apiece from the top two tiers and one from either the third or the fourth tier. Eight clubs, including three of the nine newcomers starting in the preliminary round, have been pre-selected as mini-tournament hosts and will be drawn separately before being placed in their appropriate seeding position.
As three of the hosts will be in the fourth tier of seeds but can stage three-team groups, a number of sides from Pot 3 (containing the lowest-ranked clubs) will be selected to fill the fourth position in any remaining four-team groups without a fourth-tier host. Among the seven debutants in this round are England's Baku United FC, who look set to field Arnaldo Pereira, a 2009/10 winner with SL Benfica.
For the main round, the winners of the eight preliminary round groups will be pre-drawn in the proceedings on 3 July together with the 16 teams entering at this stage. Among their number are last season's finals hosts and the competition's sole ever-presents Iberia Star Tblisi, plus debutant Tulpar Karagandy, entering as Kazakhstan's runners-up thanks to Kairat's status as holders. As in the previous draw, sides will be allocated one of four seeding positions and six clubs have been designated as hosts and will be drawn separately.
The main round will be contested from 1 to 6 October and the top two in each of the six groups will join the four top seeds in the elite round draw on 18 October. The four elite round group winners, to be decided between 19 and 24 November, will compete in the final tournament in late April with the hosts picked from among them.
FC Ilves Tampere, TS Wisła Kraków, FC Grand Pro Varna, Stella Rossa Wien, FK Nautara Kaunas, Göteborg Futsal Club, Víkingur Ólafsvík, Wrexham Futsal Club, JB Futsal Gentofte, FC Encamp, Hibernians FC, Fırat Üniversitesi Elazığ, KS Ali Demi, Baku United FC, FC Shahumyan Yerevan, Perth Saltires, KMF Tango Sarajevo, Eden College Futsal, KF Jedinstvo Bilejo Polje, Minerva Futsal Bern, Hamburg Panthers, CSC Lexmax Chisinau, FC Anzhi Tallinn, Athina '90 Athens, Vegakameratene, Sporting Clube de Paris, KMF Zelezarec Skopje, Asa Ben Gurion, VitEn Novolukomi, will compete in the preliminary round while KMF Ekonomac Kragyjevac, FK Nikars Riga, ETO FC Gyor, City'US Targu Mures, AC Omonia Nicosia, FC Lokomotiv Kharkiv, MNK Nacional Zagreb, Chatelineau Futsal, Tulpar Karagandy, FC Litija, Club Futsal Eindhoven, Iberia Star Tbilisi, Marca Futsal, Araz Nakhchivan, Slov-Matic Bratislava, FK EP Chrudim, Kairat Almaty, MFK Dinamo, FC Barcelona, Sporting Clube de Portugal.
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