Can Rangers play Celtic in the Europa League? Permutations explained after double humiliation

While Celtic were eliminated at the play-off round by Kazakhstan outfit Kairat Almaty, the lowest ranked team left in the competition, on penalties on Tuesday night after two goalless draws, their Glasgow rivals were equally embarrassed in their own play-off tie 24 hours later as 10-man Rangers were trounced 6-0 by Club Brugge in a record-equalling defeat to go down 9-1 on aggregate.

The Glasgow rivals head straight into an Old Firm derby at Ibrox on Sunday under heaps of pressure from their respective fanbases, but can they meet in the Europa League?

Like the Champions League, the Europa League now features 36 clubs in a single league format, with each club drawn against two opponents from each of the four seeding pots, playing a total of eight matches home and away.

Rangers will enter in pot one while Celtic will be placed in pot two. This is due to Rangers' superior club coefficient score of 71.250 compared to Celtic's 38.000. Celtic and Rangers will discover their opponents when the draw for the Europa League main phase is made this Friday at 12 noon BST.

Each team will play against a maximum of two opponents from any other country and teams from the same association cannot play each other in the league phase, ruling out the prospect of a Celtic v Rangers derby at this stage.

However, should both teams progress into the knockout stages, the prospect of a first-ever Old Firm showdown in European competition would become a possibility with Uefa allowing teams from the same country to meet beyond the league phase.

The top eight in the Europa League table advance directly to the round of 16 while sides finishing from ninth to 24th will contest the knockout round play-offs, with the victors going through to the last 16. Teams finishing 25th and below will be eliminated from European competition altogether.

Celtic and Rangers could face Battle of Britain clashes against either Aston Villa or Nottingham Forest in the league phase while Rangers could end up with potential rematches against Viktoria Plzen and Panathinaikos, who they defeated in the earlier rounds of Champions League qualifying.