Champions League draw: Is it on TV, how does the draw work and league format explained
The UEFA Champions League is back with its second season under the revamped format.
Tonight (August 28) clubs will find out which teams they will face in the league phase of the competition, which sees everyone put into the same table - replacing the old group stages.
But this year’s draw has been plunged into chaos, with the rules torn up thanks to six Premier League teams qualifying for this year’s competition.
Last season, Paris Saint-Germain beat Inter Milan to lift the trophy, with this year’s final being held at the Puskas Arena in Budapest, Hungary on May 30 next year.
Here’s everything you need to know about tonight’s draw, including how to watch it on TV, a reminder of how the format works and how having half a dozen clubs from the same league has caused such a headache for organisers.
Is the draw on TV?
The Champions League draw will be broadcast on TNT Sports, commencing at 5pm. This means that viewers who are Discovery Plus or Paramount Plus subscribers can also tune in to watch.
If you don’t have a subscription to these services, don’t fret. The draw will also be streamed live on UEFA’s official website and YouTube channel, free of charge.
Champions League format
The old days of 32 teams being split into eight groups of four are long gone - and so is the rule of teams “dropping down” to the Europa and Conference leagues.
Instead, we now have all 36 teams competing in a single league table, with each club playing eight games (four at home, four away). The top eight will advance straight to the round of 16, with 9th-24th going into play-offs for the remaining eight spots.
After the play-off matches, the round of 16 reverts to the familiar, two-legged elimination format on the road to the final.
Draw and pots explained
The four pots that teams are drawn from are seeded by UEFA’s club coefficient rankings, meaning that the strongest teams are in pot one, and the weakest in pot four.
Previously, the teams in pot one would not play one another, but now each team plays two clubs from each pot.
The rules are - supposedly - straightforward; no clubs are allowed to play against teams from their own league (so Real Madrid cannot be drawn against Barcelona) and a club cannot play more than two teams from one country (Inter Milan cannot play Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool).
Here are the teams in each pot for tonight’s draw.
Pot one: Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona
Pot two: Arsenal, Bayer Leverkusen, Atletico Madrid, Benfica, Atalanta, Villarreal, Juventus, Eintracht Frankfurt, Club Brugge
Pot three: Tottenham Hotspur, PSV Eindhoven, Ajax, Napoli, Sporting CP, Olympiacos, Slavia Prague, Bodo/Glimt, Marseille
Pot four: FC Copenhagen, AS Monaco, Galatasaray, Union St-Gilloise, FK Qarabag, Athletic Club, Newcastle United, Pafos, Kairat Almaty
Where the rules are thrown into jeopardy this year is through six Premier League teams qualifying for the competition.
With Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur all involved, it is almost mathematically impossible to ensure no clubs play against teams from their own league.
To resolve this, all of the non-English clubs in pot one must face two Premier League sides, theoretically giving them a harder draw for the league phase.