MONACO: Fiorentina’s quest to win the Conference League enters a fourth straight season with opponents including Mainz and Dynamo Kyiv from the draw ceremony on Friday.
The Italian club were top ranked in the 36-team draw after being twice a beaten finalist — against West Ham and Olympiakos in back-to-back years — and losing in the semifinals last season.
Fiorentina’s slate of six opponents through mid-December was completed by Rapid Vienna, AEK Athens, Sigma Olomouc and Lausanne. UEFA aims to confirm the fixture schedule by Sunday.
Crystal Palace make their European debut only reluctantly in the third-tier Conference League after a complex legal fight with UEFA.
The English FA Cup winner were demoted by UEFA from the Europa League for a breach of rules limiting investors having a significant stake in multiple clubs who qualify for the same competition. Lyon, majority owned by American businessman John Textor, stayed in the Europa League instead of Palace.
Palace get home games against Alkmaar, KuPS Kuopio of Finland and AEK Larnaca from Cyprus. Palace will go to Poland to play Dynamo Kyiv and also visit Strasbourg and Ireland’s Shelbourne.
Four clubs from Poland were in the draw, while Dynamo also has been playing games there — in Lublin — while Ukraine is unable to stage European games during the Russian military invasion.
Rapid Vienna will make two trips to Poland to play at Lech Poznan and Rakow Czestochowa.
Shakhtar Donetsk are having a rare season outside the Champions League, and will have trips to Ireland, Malta and Scotland to play Shamrock Rovers, Hamrun Spartans and Aberdeen.
Hamrun Spartans are the first club from Malta to qualify for the main phase of a European competition and also will host Switzerland’s Lausanne and Gibraltar’s Lincoln Red Imps.
Political football
UEFA kept Lincoln separate in the draw from Rayo Vallecano because of political tensions between Gibraltar and Spain. Drita of Kosovo were kept apart from Zrinjski Mostar of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
All the Polish teams, also including Legia Warsaw and Jagiellonia, were kept apart in the draw and cannot play each other until the knockout stage next year.
Format and prize money
Conference League teams play six different opponents and are ranked in a single-standings format.
The top eight teams go directly to the round of 16 in March. Teams placed ninth to 24th advance to the knockout playoffs in February. The bottom 12 teams are eliminated.
The Conference League has 285 million euros ($333 million) in UEFA prize money with each club getting a starting fee of 3.17 million euros ($3.7 million).
