LAST UPDATE | 9 Oct 2022
REPUBLIC OF IRELAND have been handed a horror draw in qualifying for Euro 2024 today, paired with Netherlands, France, Greece, and Gibraltar in Group B.
Ireland must finish in the top two of the group to qualify automatically, or else hope that their Nations League ranking will be enough to secure themselves a play-off. Those permutations will not be clear until the end of the entire qualification campaign.
It represents a nightmare draw for Stephen Kenny and Ireland, with France, the world champions, the highest-ranked side in the second pot of the draw per Fifa world rankings. The Dutch were drawn from pot one.
Greece represent one of the toughest opponents from pot four: they were the second-highest ranked side among those seeds. Gibraltar complete the draw, and were the lowest-ranked side in pot five, which will be of little relief to Stephen Kenny given the difficulty of the draw.
Elsewhere, Italy will face England in Group C, Scotland have been paired with Spain, Wales will play Croatia and Northern Ireland have been drawn into Denmark’s group.
After the fixtures list was initially announced, Uefa released a statement to say that they should be disregarded.
“We have noticed an issue with the calendar and we ask you to DISREGARD the fixture list that was sent out,” the FAI said the Uefa statement read. “A new version will be issued as soon as possible. Apologies for the inconvenience caused.”
Euro 2024 Qualifying Draw in full
Group A
- Spain
- Scotland
- Norway
- Georgia
- Cyprus
Group B
- Netherlands
- France
- Republic of Ireland
- Greece
- Gibraltar
Group C
- Italy
- England
- Ukraine
- North Macedonia
- Malta
Group D
- Croatia
- Wales
- Armenia
- Turkey
- Latvia
Group E
- Poland
- Czech Republic
- Albania
- Faroe Islands
- Moldova
Group F
- Belgium
- Austria
- Sweden
- Azerbaijan
- Estonia
Group G
- Hungary
- Serbia
- Montenegro
- Bulgaria
- Lithuania
Group H
- Denmark
- Finland
- Slovenia
- Kazakhstan
- Northern Ireland
- San Marino
Group I
- Switzerland
- Israel
- Romania
- Kosovo
- Belarus
- Andorra
Group J
- Portugal
- Bosnia
- Iceland
- Luxembourg
- Slovakia
- Lichtenstein
Updated at 22.03 with fixture disregarded