Tottenham take the plunge as England's first ever Europa Conference League competitors with the play-offs kicking off tomorrow.

Nuno Espirito Santo’s men join Aberdeen, St Johnstone and 41 other sides from across Europe in Uefa's new competition as they bid to get past Portuguese outfit Pacos de Ferreira and reach the group stage.

But what exactly is the Europa Conference League, who is taking part and why have UEFA introduced it?

Why was the Europa Conference League created?

The Europa Conference League has been invented with two aims in mind.

Firstly, UEFA were keen to slim down the bloated Europa League and adding an extra competition has allowed them to reduce that group stage from 48 to 32 teams.

They also wanted to create a tournament where more clubs from lower-ranked nations had a chance of progressing to the latter rounds.

As a result, there are far more sides from leagues with lower coefficients involved in the qualifying process.

Is this an original concept?

Only having two European competitions is a relatively new development in the history of continental football.

The European Cup, now known as the Champions League, the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, which became the UEFA Cup, and the European Cup Winners’ Cup all ran concurrently from 1960-61 until 1998-99.

With the UEFA Cup and European Cup Winners' Cup arguably being equally prestigious, having a distinct third-tier competition is a new idea in Europe but it has previously been tried in Asia.

The AFC President's Cup existed from 2005-2014 before it was amalgamated into the second-tier AFC Cup the following year.

Which teams are taking part?

Despite being billed as a tournament primarily for Europe’s less decorated nations, this season’s inaugural edition involves a smattering of big names.

Tottenham are joined by Roma, Feyenoord, Basel and Anderlecht, while there are plenty of recognisable clubs from across the continent.

But a few minnows are also in with a shot of reaching the group stage — Luxembourg’s Fola Esch, Gibraltar's Lincoln Red Imps and Lithuanian side Zalgiris are all involved in the play-off round.

The structure

In many ways, the Europa Conference League is a conventional European competition.

After four qualifying rounds, teams are divided into eight groups of four, with the table-toppers progressing to round of 16.

But unlike UEFA’s pre-existing tournaments, there will be an additional knockout round prior to the last 16, where the group stage runners-up take on the teams finishing third in the Europa League.

Another unique element to the new competition is that no side is placed directly into the group stage — every team taking part must go through at least one round of qualifying.

What is in it for the winners?

Tirana’s Arena Kombetare will host the first Europa Conference League final in May and the winners will net a cool £4.25million.

Simply getting past the play-off round is worth £2.5m, while there is around £425k available for every win in the group stage. 

With a further £850k available at each knockout round from the quarter-finals onwards, there are plenty of reasons why clubs big and small should take UEFA’s new competition seriously.