teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their coefficient ranking following the end of the qualifying group stage (excluding the play-offs), with the hosts Netherlands assigned to position A1 in the draw. Each group contained one team from each of the four seeding pots. Venues Seven venues in seven different towns were used in the tournament. Match officials A total of 11 referees, 21 assistant referees and 2 fourth officials were appointed for the final tournament. Referees Jana Adámková (Czech Republic) Stéphanie Frappart (France) Riem Hussein (Germany) Bibiana Steinhaus (Germany) Katalin Kulcsár (Hungary) Carina Vitulano (Italy) Monika Mularczyk (Poland) Anastasia Pustovoitova (Russia) Pernilla Larsson (Sweden) Esther Staubli (Switzerland) Kateryna Monzul (Ukraine) Assistant referees Sanja Rođak-Karšić (Croatia) Angela Kyriakou (Cyprus) Lucie Ratajová (Czech Republic) Sian Massey (England) Manuela Nicolosi (France) Christina Biehl (Germany) Katrin Rafalski (Germany) Chrysoula Kourompylia (Greece) Judit Kulcsár (Hungary) Lucia Abruzzese (Italy) Nicolet Bakker (Netherlands) Anna Dąbrowska (Poland) Michelle O’Neill (Republic of Ireland) Petruța Iugulescu (Romania) Mihaela Tepusa (Romania) Ekaterina Kurochkina (Russia) Svetlana Bilić (Serbia) Maria Sukenikova (Slovakia) Belinda Brem (Switzerland) Oleksandra Ardesheva (Ukraine) Maryna Striletska (Ukraine) Fourth officials Lina Lehtovaara (Finland) Lorraine Clark (Scotland) Squads Each national team have to submit a squad of 23 players, three of whom must be goalkeepers. If a player is injured or ill severely enough to prevent her participation in the tournament before her team's first match, she can be replaced by another player. The squad list must be published no later than 10 days before the tournaments opening match. Group stage The schedule of the competition was announced on 23 September 2015. The group winners and runners-up advance to the quarter-finals. All times are local, CEST (UTC+2). Tiebreakers Teams are 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 are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 19.01 and 19.02): Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams; Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams; Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams; If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams; Goal difference in all group matches; Goals scored in all group matches; Penalty