SCOTLAND will be forced to play England at Wembley in Euro 2020 if they got through to the Finals via the play-offs after UEFA last night dramatically altered their process for the Group Stage games.
Steve Clarke's side are almost certainly out of any automatic qualifying route after a disastrous campaign, but have the fallback of a play-off semi-final and potential Final next year to try and make their first major tournament in 22 years. England have already almost clinched qualification after four wins out of four in their group.
Both Hampden and Wembley are hosts for the Group Stages games and UEFA had already previously announced both Scotland and England would be in Group D for the tournament, ahead of the draw in Dublin in December and would face an Auld Enemy showdown.
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They had previously indicated to both FAs there would be a toss of the coin to see whether the match would be in either Glasgow or London, which was widely reported.
But, after last night's meeting in Ljubljana of UEFA's Exceutive Committee, they have now updated their procedures for the games in the Finals.
And they have ruled that the nation who qualify automatically, almost certainly England, will have preference over countries who rely on a play-off to qualify.
Their updated Euro 2020 Finals regulations now state: "If one of the host teams is directly qualified and the other host team is in the play-offs, then the directly qualified host team will be awarded three Group matches at home and the other team, would play two matches at home."
It would mean a repeat of the Euro 96 encounter at Wembley, which is the only time Scotland and England have met in the Finals of a major tournament.
And Scotland would play two Group games at Hampden before having to play Gareth Southgate's men at Wembley, if they qualify through that play-off.
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