Motherwell are just three European ties away from banking at least £2.5 million

Motherwell will land a minimum of £2.5 million in prizemoney if they can negotiate three rounds – a total of six matches played on Thursdays – and qualify for the group stages of the 2022-2023 Europa Conference League.
Callum Lang celebrates scoring for Motherwell in their last European home game, a 5-1 win over Glentoran on August 27, 2020Callum Lang celebrates scoring for Motherwell in their last European home game, a 5-1 win over Glentoran on August 27, 2020
Callum Lang celebrates scoring for Motherwell in their last European home game, a 5-1 win over Glentoran on August 27, 2020

The Steelmen – whose continental place was sealed by a fifth place finish in the Scottish Premiership – will enter the tournament as a seeded team in the second qualifying round, the draw for which will be made on June 15 before the ties are played on July 21 and July 28.

In the second qualifying round there will be a raft of potential opponents. In terms of unseeded teams who are guaranteed to enter at that stage, Motherwell would be keen to avoid Turkey’s third-place side Konyaspor, AIK who are currently level on points at the top of the Swedish league and Polish runners-up Raków Częstochowa.

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But there are plenty of teams who Motherwell would fancy defeating, from Makedonija Gjorče Petrov to St Patrick's Athletic to Gomel.

In the third qualifying round, there would likely be Basel, Sparta and Slavia Prague, as well as Anderlecht and Twente.

Progression into this stage would see ’Well unseeded, with the draw for the third qualifying round on July 18 and the ties on August 4 and August 11.

Getting successfully through that would take Graham Alexander’s side into the play-offs on August 18 and 25, with further progression resulting in the Steelmen playing their six group games between September 8 and November 3.

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In monetary terms, if ’Well lose in the second qualifying round they will get around £300,000. It rises to £470,000 in the third round and £640,000 if knocked out at the play-off stage. In addition to group stage qualification being worth £2.5m, each group win gets £420,000 and it’s £140,000 for a draw.

Meanwhile, Scotland’s bid to qualify for a first World Cup finals in 24 years continues tonight (Wednesday) with defender Stephen O’Donnell and goalkeeper Liam Kelly both in Steve Clarke’s squad for the Hampden play-off semi-final against Ukraine which kicks off at 7.45pm.

Victory would land the Scots a trip to Wales for Sunday's play-off final which kicks off at 5pm, with a spot in the finals in Qatar this November and December at stake.

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