Not the Euro 2016 Draw

Inspired by a friend who moaned about the seeding policy for the draw for the qualification groups for the 2016 European Championships I decided to perform a little experiment.

Pre-draw admin

With 24 places available in the French tournament in two years time, it seems as if any of the top nations fail to qualify something cataclysmic will have to have occurred. With a total of 53 countries entering the competition - plus the holders France - it is a little strange that UEFA still don't trust the likes of Italy, Spain and Germany not to qualify at a canter. They still deemed it necessary to seed the best sides to make sure they didn't accidentally meet each other in qualification and ruin it for everyone when it comes to the finals.

The draw

With this in mind I decided to stage my own draw with no strings attached. I would pull the names out of the hat - or in this case an old German drinking vessel - and see what turned up. I, unlike UEFA, did nothing to stop the possibility of Spain and Gibraltar sharing the same group. I also didn't keep apart some of the bigger nations due to "television demands". But then I didn't need to keep my sponsors happy.

So, without further preamble, here are the nine groups. I now have to somehow think of a way to keep this strange experiment going all the way to Paris in 2016. Keeps me busy I suppose.

Group A
Norway
Germany
Poland
Wales
Cyprus
Albania

Group B
France
Ukraine
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Faroe Islands
Austria
Greece

Group C
Belgium
Montenegro
Macedonia
Moldova
Kazakhstan
Estonia

Group D
Armenia
Lithuania
Holland
Czech Republic
Croatia
Finland

Group E
Malta
Northern Ireland
Sweden
Israel
Andorra
San Marino

Group F
Azerbaijan
Portugal
Luxembourg
Gibraltar
Slovenia
Turkey

Group G
Switzerland
Slovakia
Latvia
Iceland
Scotland
Serbia

Group H
England
Belarus
Romania
Hungary
Bulgaria
Republic of Ireland

Group I
Italy
Denmark
Spain
Liechtenstein
Georgia
Russia

Keep up to date with any further developments on twitter with #AltEuro16