TNS owner Mike Harris says Wales' top Premier League clubs can look forward to a successful future in Europe.
The Welsh champions earned respect in their 6-1 two-leg Champions League loss to Anderlecht and now face CSKA Sofia in a Europa League play-off.
Bangor City also beat FC Honka 3-2 on their way to a 10-3 exit against CS Maritimo in the Europa League.
Harris said: "We are going to be able to regularly compete past the first rounds of these club competitions."
TNS face the Bulgarian club on 19 and 26 August, travelling to the 1989 semi-finalists for the first leg.
Harris added: "They [CSKA Sofia] are a name. The grouping gave us a chance of pulling Aston Villa out of the hat - that would have been a nice draw, being just down the road.
The gap is regularly closing and hopefully over the next few years we'll close the gap further
TNS backer Mike Harris
"But getting past CSKA would put the club on to a platform alongside many of the other big clubs of Europe and it would obviously bring a lot of well-needed profile to our league."
Harris says the efforts of TNS and rivals Bangor this summer have already done much to boost the Welsh Premier's standing.
He added: "Last week against Anderlecht you would not know which team some of our players were from.
"We more than held our own there. It was one where the amount of quality Anderlecht had in depth with a £50m wage bill against our £500,000 wage bill obviously eventually told out.
"But the gap is regularly closing and hopefully over the next few years we'll close the gap further.
"The league has been continuing to improve year on year and I think you'll find that the performances turned in by the clubs in Wales are getting to the point where we are going to be able to regularly compete past the first rounds of these club competitions."
~RS~a~RS~International~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~07~RS~){kind=small}
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~07~RS~)
E-mail this to a friend
Printable version
Bookmark with:
What are these?