UEFA deal Everton Champions League blow

Last updated : 03 June 2005 By Austin Rathe
Although the news has not yet been confirmed, Everton have issued a statement on the issue. Everton head of communications, Ian Ross, said: "As we have not been involved in Europe for the past five seasons we hold no UEFA team ranking and therefore take the England ranking into the Champions League for seeding purposes."

"The current seeding list is worked out on the basis that teams such as Anderlecht, Locomotive Moscow, Dinamo Kiev and Celtic all progress through the second qualifying round.

"But even if that did not prove to be the case the ranking for Everton is still too low to give us a seeded place, which is an extremely unusual situation for an English team to be in."

A non-seeded team will always play a seeded team in the qualifying round, with teams such as Manchester United and Milan being seeded.