Follow the Europa League group stage draw here

Sevilla Europa League
Sevilla will attempt to defend their Europa League crown this season

Where to Watch Live

Friday's draw (29 August) takes place in Nyon, Switzerland and is scheduled to begin at 12.00 (BST). A live stream will be available through Uefa's official website here and IBTimes UK will provide minute by minute coverage of the draw.

Overview

The Europa League's reputation is often derided by supporters and overlooked by managers when considered in the grand scheme of a club's season.

Away trips to the furthest corners of the continent in the group stages and inconvenient Thursday night games that threaten to disrupt the rhythm of a domestic campaign have seen the competition overlooked by many in the past but this season's edition is different.

The move to ensure the winners of the 2015 Europa League qualify for next season's Champions League regardless of their domestic finish has boosted interest in the competition significantly.

How will this affect teams pining for European glory? Ambition to succeed on the continent will by justly awarded for starters. In both of their triumphs in 2010 and 2012, Atletico Madrid failed to finish in the top four in Spain, finishing 9<sup>th (2010) and 5<sup>th (2012) as they failed to maintain a balance between European and domestic commitments.

Their prize for such successes was another go in the same competition. Surely that success was deserving of something better? The guarantee of Champions League football for this year's winner could drastically change the perception of where the competition lies in a team's priorities. The expected is upshot is a better standard of football among a better quality of teams. That can't be a bad thing, can it?

Format

Forty-eight teams enter Friday's group stage draw: teams who automatically qualified last season, the play-off winners and the ten losing teams from the Uefa Champions League play-offs.

The 48 teams are split into four seeding pots based on UEFA's coefficient system, with one from each drawn into the 12 groups. No side can meet another from the same league.

Europa League group stage draw pots

Pot one: Sevilla, Inter, Spurs, PSV, Napoli, D Kiev, Villarreal, Fiorentina, Salzburg, Metalist, Lille, Copenhagen.

Pot two: Steaua, Liege, PAOK, Celtic, Besiktas, Wolfsburg, Brugge, Dnipro, Trabzonspor, Panathinaikos, Sparta, Gladbach

Pot three: Everton, Y Boys, D Zagreb, Zurich, Estoril, Legia, Partizan, Torino, Feyenoord, Guingamp, St Etienne, Rio Ave

Pot four: D Moscow, Krasnodar, Rijeka, Lokeren, Asteras, Slovan Bratislava, Apollon, Qarabag, HJK, Dinamo Minsk, Aab, Astana

Hull City FC