Chelsea could face Real Madrid in the group stages of the Champions League while the Premier League’s other qualifiers could potentially be paired with either Bayern Munich or Barcelona, as Uefa’s new seeding system is implemented for the first time in Thursday’s draw in Monaco.
The governing body has scrapped the previous policy, under which the top eight teams were determined by recent performances in the competition and would so comprise pot one in the draw and avoid each other in the group stage. Instead, top-seeded status is now only granted to the Champions League holders and the winners of the domestic leagues in Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France and Russia. This season, that has also been extended to the Netherlands, given that the reigning European champions Barcelona also won La Liga last season.
As a result, the Catalan club – who will hope to retain the trophy at the final at the San Siro next May – are joined by Chelsea, Bayern, Juventus, Benfica, Paris Saint-German, Zenit St Petersburg and PSV Eindhoven in the first pot. Those last three clubs would only have merited inclusion in the third group of seeds under the previous system.
The knock-on effect of their elevation is the relegation of Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid, Arsenal and Porto to pot two, where they will join Valencia, Manchester City and two from Shakhtar Donetsk, the Europa League winners Sevilla and, if they progress on Wednesday night, Bayer Leverkusen and Manchester United.
Spain are the first nation to boast five clubs in the group stage after Valencia eliminated Monaco in the play-offs on Tuesday.
For City who, as relative newcomers to this competition have been dogged by difficult draws at this stage in recent years, the prospect remains of a group that might include Barça, Roma and Wolfsburg. They and Arsenal might hope instead to be placed alongside PSV, Olympiakos and Malmo – who overcame Celtic in Sweden on Tuesday – with Arsène Wenger hoping to steer his side into the knockout phase for the 16th year in succession.
Gent, winners of the Belgian league last season, are guaranteed new faces among the 32 clubs at the group stage, while Astana can become the first team from Kazakhstan if they overcome the Cypriot side, Apoel, on Wednesday. Borussia Mönchengladbach, beaten finalists to Liverpool in 1977, will make their debut in the revamped European Cup.
Uefa, like last year, is to keep Russian clubs away from Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar given the conflict in eastern Ukraine between government forces and pro-Russian separatists.
Controversially, the Greek champions Olympiakos have been permitted to take part despite their president, Vangelis Marinakis, having been implicated in a criminal investigation into alleged match-fixing. The court of arbitration for sport this week dismissed an appeal by Panathinaikos, last season’s runners-up, to be included instead after Uefa confirmed it had no conclusive evidence from Greece to deny Olympiakos their place.
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