Football
Women’s Champions League: Arsenal face Rangers, Celtic against KuPS
Arsenal will face Rangers in the first round of qualification for the group stage of next season’s Women’s Champions League.
The winners of the one-off tie will face either Spanish side Atletico Madrid or Rosenborg BK of Norway in a bid to progress to the next stage.
SWPL champions Celtic take on Finnish side KuPS in their semi-final, with the winners of that playing FC Gintra of Lithuania or Moldovan side Agarista.
All the games will be played at the same venue, with the semi-finals on September 4 and the final three days later.
The two losing semi-finalists will face each other in a third-placed play-off.
Round one is split into two paths, the ‘champions path’ – which has 11 groups and is the section Celtic are in – and the ‘league path’, which has four group and is where Arsenal and Rangers feature.
Rangers manager Jo Potter, who spent a season at Arsenal during her playing career, will lead the SWPL runners-up back into European football for a second time, having played in the qualifying rounds in 2022/23 season.
Arsenal’s previous experience of Scottish opposition in the Women’s Champions League was a 6-2 win on aggregate against Glasgow City in 2013.
English champions Chelsea go straight into the group stage, while last season’s WSL runners-up Manchester City will enter qualification in round two.
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