Now to more important matters

We now know which Scottish football clubs will be involved in which European competitions next season.

With a Man U/Chelsea Champions' League final this season, and those two teams occupying the top 2 places in the English Premier League, the SPL Winners will get their place in the Group Stage. The Runners-up will be a seeded team in the Second Qualifying Round, and should they progress, will be seeded in the Third Qualifying Round as well. This is a good thing as it means that they will not play Barcelona at this stage. For the actual Group Stage seedings, Rangers will go into either Pot 2 or Pot 3 - this appears to be contingent on their performance on Wednesday - while Celtic will go into either Pot 3 or Pot 4 - this has more to do with who get knocked out in the Qualifying Rounds.

Motherwell are confirmed in Third Place, and so qualify for the UEFA Cup, as do Queen of the South, for reaching the Cup Final - Rangers' access to the Champions' League means that QoS will go into UEFA. Unless a mighty upset takes place, they will enter into the Second Qualifying Round, and Motherwell will go into the First Round proper. If, somehow, the First Division side do manage to overturn Rangers, then the reverse will be true. We don't yet know the seedings, though I'd guess that the team in the Second Qualifying Round will be seeded, but that the team(s) in the First Round Proper will not.

Finally, Hibs will go into the Intertoto Cup - by virtue of the fact that only they and Falkirk could be arsed to enter it. They will enter in the Second Round, where they will play the First Leg at home to either Sweden's IF Elfsborg or HB Torshavn of the Faroe Islands. If they get through that, they'll play the First Leg of the Third Round tie at home to one of Latvia's FK Riga, Iceland's Fylkir Reykjavik, Bohemians (from Dublin) or Rhyl. If they win that tie, they go into the Second Qualifying Round of the UEFA Cup, where they're a good bet to be seeded, and in fact have a greater chance of being seeded than either Queen of the South or Motherwell.

My thanks, as before, go to Mr. Kassies.