England will play in top tier of new UEFA competition

enGLAnD have been placed in the top tier of the new UeFA nations League.

The new tournament for the 55 european teams will run in the season following a World Cup or european Championship. The inaugural nations League (nL) will kick off next September, with the final in June 2019.

Teams are split into four ‘leagues’ based on their ranking. england are in League A with Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, Iceland, Croatia and holland.

Wales, Republic of Ireland and northern Ireland are in League B and Scotland in C.

each league is split into four groups and teams play each other home and away between September and november 2018. The four group winners in League A go to the semis, with promotion and relegation between the four leagues for the next tournament.

The semi- finals, third- place match and final are in June 2019.

euro 2020 qualifiers start in March 2019. The positions of teams in the nL determine the pots for the qualifying groups. Twenty of the 24 places at euro 2020 are decided by the conventional qualifiers.

Any nL group winner who do not qualify gets another chance in the 16-team play-offs for four more places.

If they have already qualified, their play-off place is taken by the next best team in their nL group.