Europe.

Saracens, who last season became the first Premiership club to win Europe’s blue-riband club tournament for a third time, will begin the defence of their title with a mouthwatering Heineken Champions Cup clash against Racing 92 at Paris La Défense Arena on Sunday, 17 November.

The Pool 4 confrontation, which will be live on BT Sport, is only one of a host of top-quality matches in the fixture schedules for all six rounds of the 2019/20 Heineken Champions Cup and Challenge Cup which have been announced by tournament organisers EPCR.

Click HERE for the 2019/20 Heineken Champions Cup fixtures

Click HERE for the 2019/20 Challenge Cup fixtures

BT Sport, which this season has enhanced access for Irish customers, continues to lead the television coverage of the Heineken Champions Cup in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The competition, which has seven previous winners with 16 titles between them, will again be available on a free-to-air basis with one key match per round broadcast live on Channel 4 and Virgin Media.

The opening free-to-air fixture will see Bath Rugby pitted against Ulster Rugby in Pool 3 at the Recreation Ground on Saturday, 16 November, while the first shots of the landmark 25th season of European professional club rugby will be fired when Toulouse, the winners of the inaugural tournament in 1996 and the current TOP 14 champions, travel to Gloucester Rugby on Friday, 15 November.

Leinster Rugby, the reigning Guinness PRO14 champions, take on Benetton Rugby, who last season became the first Italian club to qualify by right for Europe’s top tier, at the RDS in Pool 1 on Saturday, 16 November and the Irish province will then come up against a resurgent Northampton Saints in the key December back-to-back matches.

ASM Clermont Auvergne, who won the 2019 Challenge Cup in such impressive style, will once again pack out the Stade Marcel-Michelin for their opening Pool 3 game against Harlequins also on Saturday, 16 November.

Other highlights of the crucial back-to-back fixtures in Rounds 3 and 4 include the meetings of Munster Rugby and Gallagher Premiership title holders, Saracens, as well as the head-to-heads between Bath and Clermont, Glasgow Warriors and La Rochelle, and Harlequins and Ulster.

Ahead of the 2020 finals in Marseille next May, all 60 matches in Rounds 1 to 6 of the Heineken Champions Cup will be broadcast live in the UK, Ireland and Italy on either BT Sport, Channel 4, Virgin Media or DAZN, and in France on beIN SPORTS and France Télévisions.