UEFA has been forced to almost completely computerize the Champions League draw from next season as a result of its new format.
The competition will be expanded to include 36 teams from 2024-25, with all teams in a single league table. Each team will play eight matches, four at home and four away, with a draw required to decide the matches.
There will be four pots of nine teams, ranked according to UEFA’s five-year performance coefficient, with the club facing two opponents from each pot.
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UEFA says manually drawing each club’s rivals – as was the case under the old system, which included prominent former players – would take up to four hours and require up to 900 balls due to complex considerations in the draw.
Clubs will not be able to withdraw teams from their country, unless there are so many teams in one pot that a deadlock is inevitable. This will only affect leagues with four or more clubs in the competition, although UEFA believes it will be able to avoid that next season.
This means that the only manual aspect will be the ceremonial part of choosing the team whose matches will be decided. The computer will then automatically allocate that team’s opponents from all four pots, and decide which matches will be home and away.
For example, if the first pot includes: Manchester City, Sevilla, Barcelona, Napoli, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, Benfica, Feyenoord, Real Madrid.
UEFA will only withdraw one team, such as Barcelona. The combinations will then be displayed one by one by computer drawing.
UEFA insists its computer systems are robust and are audited by Ernst & Young to promote fairness.
It has also been confirmed that there will be two limited-time draws for the knockout rounds – one at the end of the league stage at the end of January, and one at the end of February for the round of 16. However, this will only decide which side of the bracket the teams fall on as it will largely be predetermined by the positions in the league stage. There will be no draw for the quarter-finals and semi-finals, which will already be decided in the bracket
The maximum number of clubs in the Champions League from one association would be seven, although it is theoretically possible for the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 to have 11 clubs in all European competitions – although that would require periodically. To win all three and those clubs did not finish in the European position domestically.
