Soccer: Magpies miss out on UEFA Cup

Newcastle and Dunfermline Athletic have missed out on a UEFA Cup place via the Fair Play draw.

Finnish team My-Pa 47 and an as-yet unknown Slovakian team were the two names picked out of the hat.

Newcastle came third in the Premiership’s Fair Play table behind Ipswich and Manchester United, who had already qualified for the UEFA Cup and the Champions League respectively.

Dunfermline ended up as runners-up to treble-winning Celtic in the Scottish Premier League Fair Play stakes.

Both sides finished in mid-table obscurity this season and while a European campaign is no novelty for the Magpies it would have been the Pars’ first Euro venture since 1969-70.

The names of teams from 11 nations went into the draw at UEFA’s Nyon headquarters in Switzerland.

An automatic spot had already been handed to Belarus, who were the overall winners of UEFA’s Fair Play table.

Shakhtior Soligorsk were the team to benefit and were today joined in the qualifying round by My-Pa 47 and the Slovakian team, whose identity will be known once their season finishes in mid-June.