Newcastle United’s Champions League group stage draw fate has already been confirmed

Newcastle United now know their Champions League group stage draw fate.

The Champions League qualifiers are still ongoing at this point, but the Magpies have already wrapped up qualification after finishing fourth in the Premier League last season. Eddie Howe’s men secured a return to UEFA’s premier competition after two decades, and they are now awaiting their first opponents, with the draw set to take place on August 31.

On that date, the 32 qualified teams will be drawn into groups of four, and each group will be comprised of one team from each of the four pots.

Those four pots, aside form the winners of the top seven leagues and the winners of the Europa League, Sevilla, are calculated by UEFA Coefficient points. Those points are based on European performance across the last five seasons, meaning Newcastle would have zero points, but that is not the case. Clubs are awarded their own coefficient total or 20% of their country’s coefficient total, whichever is greater, meaning Newcastle get the 21,914 points from the Premier League.

That’s not particularly good news this season, though, with the pot three requirement currently safely above 40,000 points, meaning Newcastle are already confirmed as a pot four seed, which is the lowest seed. That means they will get one of the league winners - with the exception of Manchester City - or Sevilla, as well as a pot two and pot three side.

Elsewhere, Manchester United and Arsenal will be pot two seeds, Celtic will almost certainly be a pot four seed, while Rangers could be pot three if they manage to qualify. Here is how the pots for the group stage draw currently look:

Pot 1

• Manchester City
• Sevilla
• Barcelona
• Napoli
• Bayern Munich
• Paris Saint-Germain
• Benfica
• Feyenoord

Pot 2

• Real Madrid
• Manchester United
• Inter
• Borussia Dortmund
• Atlético Madrid
• RB Leipzig
• Porto
• Arsenal

Pot 3

• Shakhtar Donetsk
• Red Bull Salzburg
• AC Milan
• Lazio
• Red Star Belgrade
• One ‘League Path’ winner (Rangers or Braga or PSV)

Pot 3 or Pot 4

• Real Sociedad
• Celtic
• Four ‘Champions Path’ winners
• One ‘League Path’ winner

Pot 4

• Newcastle United
• Union Berlin
• Lens