City will enter the final phase of qualifying in a section called the League Route with the qualifying round first leg to be played on 16/17 August and the return on 23/24 August.
The Blues will learn the opponents when the draw is made in Nyon on 5 August and the 2016/17 Premier League season will begin on the weekend beginning 13 August – so it promises to be a busy start for the Blues.
The Blues will be one of five seeded teams in the qualifying round - the other seeded teams could possibly come from Roma, Porto, Borussia Monchengladbach, Shakhtar, Ajax and Villarreal – seeded teams cannot face each other at this stage.
Ten sides will compete for the right to go through to the final qualifying round – they play their second qualifying round on July 26/27 and August 2/3.
Several teams have been confirmed but with the Russian Premier League still to be completed, CSKA or Rostov will take the final berth and both Greece and Belgium operate play-offs for their final Champions League berths..
The Blues’ opponents could come from one of the following clubs:
Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine)*
Ajax (Netherlands)*
Monaco (France)
Fenerbahce (Turkey)
Sparta Prague (Czech Republic)
Steaua Bucharest (Romania)
Young Boys Berne (Switzerland)
1 x team from Belgium (TBC)
1 x team from Greece (TBC)
CSKA Moscow or Rostov (Russia)
*Will not meet if seeded
A seeding element to the teams who qualify for the play-off round could complicate matters, though the waters will be clearer after the third qualifying round has been completed.
City have met Ajax, CSKA and Fenerbahce previously in European competition..
The teams that lose the qualifying round will go into the Europa League. Leicester City, Arsenal and Tottenham have automatically qualified for the group stages of the Champions League and could be joined by Liverpool if they win the Europa League final against Sevilla.
We’ll look at our possible opponents in greater detail prior to the draw.
The Champions League group stage games begin 13/14 September.
