1996 UEFA European Championship (qualifying)

Qualifying for the UEFA Euro 1996 final tournament took place throughout 1994 and 1995. Forty-seven teams were divided into eight groups. All teams played against each other, within their groups, in a home-and-away basis. The winner of each group along with the six best runners-up automatically qualified, while the two worst runners-up were involved in a play-off on a neutral ground. England qualified automatically as hosts of the event.

This was the first time for the qualifying phase for the European Football Championship which awarded three points instead of two for a win.

The draw was made on 22 January 1994 in Manchester. Denmark were seeded first as holders. The other seedings were determined by points per game in the qualifiers for 1992 European Championship and the 1994 World Cup. Other points to note:

New teams that joined UEFA's qualification games after the 1994 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA):

Hosts

If two or more teams finished level on points after completion of the group matches, the following tie-breakers were used to determine the final ranking:

The runners-up of each of the eight groups were placed in a table to decide which seven of them would qualify. The best six runners-up would qualify automatically, while the two worst would play-off on a neutral ground to determine the final qualifier. To determine the two worst runners-up, a comparison was made between all of them. Only matches played against teams that finished first, third and fourth were regarded.

The bottom two runners-up, the Republic of Ireland and the Netherlands, took part in a play-off on a neutral ground to determine the last team to qualify for the final tournament.

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