Apart from Northern Ireland, 53 of the remaining 54 UEFA member national teams entered the qualifying competition.[3] Players born on or after 1 January 2001 were eligible to participate.
The qualifying competition was planned to consist of two rounds:[4]
Qualifying round: Apart from Portugal, which received a bye to the elite round as the team with the highest seeding coefficient, the remaining 52 teams were drawn into thirteen groups of four teams. Each group was played in single round-robin format at one of the teams selected as hosts after the draw. The thirteen group winners, the thirteen runners-up, and the third-placed team with the best record against the first and second-placed teams in their group advanced to the elite round.
Elite round: The 28 teams were drawn into seven groups of four teams. Before being cancelled, each group was planned to be played in single round-robin format at one of the teams selected as hosts after the draw. The seven group winners would have qualified for the final tournament.
The schedule of each group was planned as follows, with two rest days between each matchday (Regulations Article 20.04):[4]
Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 14.01 and 14.02):[4]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams had the same number of points, and they met in the last round of the group and were tied after applying all criteria above (not used if more than two teams had the same number of points, or if their rankings were not relevant for qualification for the next stage);
Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying round draw;
Drawing of lots.
To determine the best third-placed team from the qualifying round, the results against the teams in fourth place were discarded. The following criteria were applied (Regulations Articles 15.01 and 15.02):[4]
Points;
Goal difference;
Goals scored;
Disciplinary points (total 3 matches);
UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying round draw;
Each group contained one team from Pot A, one team from Pot B, one team from Pot C, and one team from Pot D. Based on the decisions taken by the UEFA Emergency Panel, the following pairs of teams could not be drawn in the same group: Spain and Gibraltar, Serbia and Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, Azerbaijan and Armenia.
The Switzerland v Republic of Ireland and Austria v Gibraltar matches, originally scheduled to be played on 13 November 2019 at 11:00 and 14:30 respectively, were postponed to 14 November at 13:00 due to snow.[6]
To determine the best third-placed team from the qualifying round which advance to the elite round, only the results of the third-placed teams against the first and second-placed teams in their group are taken into account.
The draw for the elite round was held on 3 December 2019, 12:00 CET (UTC+1), at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.[7]
The teams were seeded according to their results in the qualifying round.[8]Portugal, which received a bye to the elite round, were automatically seeded into Pot A. Each group contained one team from Pot A, one team from Pot B, one team from Pot C, and one team from Pot D. Teams from the same qualifying round group could not be drawn in the same group. Based on the decisions taken by the UEFA Emergency Panel, Russia and Ukraine could not be drawn in the same group.
The elite round was originally scheduled to be played between 25–31 March 2020. On 12 March 2020, UEFA announced that the elite round had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[9] On 17 June 2020, UEFA announced that the elite round had been rescheduled to 2–8 September 2020.[10] However, UEFA announced on 13 August 2020 that after consultation with the 55 member associations, the elite round had been further postponed to October 2020.[11][12] On 16 September 2020, UEFA announced that the elite round had been further postponed to November 2020.[13] UEFA announced on 20 October 2020 that the tournament had been cancelled.[14]