Celtic and Rangers set for Champions League draw overhaul after

Celtic and Rangers set for Champions League draw overhaul after UEFA admission

Due to UEFA’s discovery that organizing the draw manually under the competition’s new format would require

“three or four hours,” the Champions League draw is scheduled for revision this summer.

designs. The 32-team Champions League group phase, which has been in place since the 1999–2000 season, will

give way to a 36-team league phase. In the league phase, each team will play eight different opponents as UEFA

attempts to devise a format that minimizes dead rubbers, matches up elite teams early in the competition, and gives

Rangers, who lead their Old Firm opponents by two points with nine games remaining, and Celtic, who are fighting

for the Premiership title, will be interested in the draw structure.

The league winners go straight to the group stages,

while the runners-up go through to the third qualifying round of Europe’s Blue Riband competition.

Teams are currently chosen by hand from seeded pots, but UEFA’s deputy general secretary Giorgio Marchetti

acknowledged that this could not continue.

He estimated that the Champions League draw alone could take up to

four hours and involve roughly 900 balls if it carried on in the same manner.

The specifics of the draw’s methodology are still being finalized, but according to UEFA, it will be a “hybrid” event

with both automation and human ball drawing.

To allay any claims that the draw was manipulated, UEFA declared

that any automatic components will still be subject to independent audits. Except in extremely rare situations, teams

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