UEFA is rolling out fresh designs for all three of its men’s club tournaments starting from next season, replacing the 32-team Champions League group phase with a larger one comprising 36 clubs that has been going on since the 1999-2000 campaign. Every team will play eight different opponents in the forthcoming league round. This will reduce the number of meaningless games, match up the best teams much earlier than previously, and increase the significance of the knockout draw based on the teams’ final league positions.
As it stands, the winners of the Scottish Premiership will directly qualify for the group stage next season, with the side that comes in second advancing into the third qualifying round for the Champions League. With nine games remaining, Rangers command a two-point advantage over arch rivals Celtic at the top, with the teams likely to face off against each other again before the campaign draws to a close.
Teams are typically chosen by hand from seeded pots, but Giorgio Marchetti, the deputy general secretary of UEFA, acknowledged that a completely manual draw will not be feasible. He estimated that, should the current process remain unchanged, the Champions League draw alone could require “three or four hours” and almost 900 balls.
UEFA has stated that the draw will be a “hybrid” event, meaning that some ball drawing would be done by hand in addition to some automated processes, even though the specific format is still being finalized. UEFA made it clear that all computerized components will still undergo independent verification to prevent accusations of draw manipulation or finger-pointing.
Except in extremely rare situations, teams from the same nation will not be allowed to play together until the new knockout round, which will be contested by the teams who finished ninth through twenty-four in the league phase. From the last 16 onward, UEFA will implement a tennis-style seeding system, meaning that the teams that place first and second in the league phase will be drawn into different halves and will not be able to play each other until the final.
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