The Champions League is (almost) back with the new season well underway. Ahead of the draw, here’s everything you need to know about the return of Europe’s leading club competition.
When is it?
The draw for the league phase will begin from 5pm BST/12pm ET on Thursday 28 August at the Grimaldi Forum, an exhibition centre in Monaco.
How to watch
Free live coverage of the draw will be available on UEFA.com, while UK viewers can watch or stream the action on TNT Sports 1 and Discovery+ respectively. Viewers in the US can watch on Paramount+.
How the draw works
The good news is that the format for the draw is exactly the same as last year. The caveat is that you may still need some reminding of just how UEFA’s new, digital-heavy drawing process works.
Last season saw the eight-groups-of-four arrangement of former tournament’s abandoned for a new ‘Swiss Model’ league format, and with it went the all-manual draws of old.
Now, four pots of nine are seeded by coefficient, a score based on the performances of teams competing across the five previous seasons of the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League.
The reigning Champions League winners are the only club not seeded by coefficient, meaning Paris Saint-Germain will be first side drawn on Thursday.
To save time, the process is now almost totally automated, with human involvement now limited to the on-stage drawing of the 36 involved teams. After each side emerges from the ‘hat’, a button is pressed that immediately reveals that club’s eight opponents for the league phase.
Each team will square off against two opponents from each of the four pots, including two from their own pot, across eight total matches – split evenly between home and away.
No team from the same country can be drawn against each other, nor can a side play more than two matches against sides from the same nation. For example, Liverpool cannot face Arsenal – or all of Spanish trio Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid – in the league phase. These caveats, plus the seeding system, means teams already have a shortlist of opponents they’ll face in the tournament even before the draw has begun.
Like last year, the software used to run the automated draw has been provided by AE Live, while global financial services company Ernst and Young will return to Monte Carlo to provide the review and control of the process.
Our potential opponents from Pot One in tomorrow’s #UCL league phase draw. ✊ pic.twitter.com/kOdukfixJJ
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) August 27, 2025
Seedings
Pot 1:
Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona
Pot 2:
Arsenal, Bayer Leverkusen, Atletico Madrid, Benfica, Atalanta, Villarreal, Juventus, Eintracht Frankfurt, Club Brugge
Pot 3:
Tottenham, PSV, Ajax, Napoli, Sporting Lisbon, Olympiacos, Slavia Prague, Bodo/Glimt, Marseille
Pot 4:
Copenhagen, Monaco, Galatasaray, Qarabag, Union Saint-Gilloise, Athletic Club, Pafos, Kairat, Newcastle
Once again, two additional slots in the competition have been awarded to nations whose clubs performed best in Europe last season, with England’s Newcastle United and Spain’s Villarreal subsequently qualifying following fifth-place finishes in the Premier League and La Liga respectively.
Spurs will be in the Champions League draw for the first time since the 2022-23 tournament as a reward for their Europa League triumph in May, while Kairat — who broke Celtic hearts in dramatic fashion — Bodo/Glimt, Pafos, Qarabag, Benfica, Club Brugge and Copenhagen all sealed their places through the qualifying route that concluded on Wednesday.
A reminder of how the group stage works
Gone are the days of 32 clubs battling in eight groups of four to make it to the last 16. As of last season, it’s now a single league table of 36 sides who have eight – not six – fixtures to climb as high as possible.
Each team will play four home and four away matches as they bid to finish as one of the top eight sides come January that will automatically advance to the knockout stage. Those placed ninth to 24th will square off across two-legged play-off ties to decide who joins those elite eight in the last 16.
The round of 16 and beyond is seeded, meaning the teams who finish first and second in the league phase cannot meet until the final.
The bottom 12 teams in the league phase are out of European action for the remainder of the season – that Europa League safety net of old has been slashed.
A total of 189 matches, up from the previous 125, concludes with the final at the Puskas Arena in Budapest, Hungary on Saturday May 30 2026.
Still unsure? Then our explainer from when the new format was announced has all the detail you need.
Broadcasters
Broadcasting rights in the UK will once again be split between Amazon Prime and TNT Sports, with UEFA selling its UK and Ireland Champions League rights to the duo for a combined €1.7billion (£1.4bn; $1.9bn) over three years ago.
Prime Video has access to what it describes as Tuesday night’s “top-pick” match, up to and including the semi-finals, with TNT Sports sweeping up the remaining matches. Highlights of every game will also be available on BBC iPlayer.
In the US, CBS Sports maintain control as they enter the second season of a six-year contract for Paramount Global to broadcast UEFA club tournaments across the CBS network and its Paramount+ streaming services.
When are the Matchdays?
Matchday 1: 16 – 18 September
Matchday 2: 30 September – 1 October
Matchday 3: 21 – 22 October
Matchday 4: 4 – 5 November
Matchday 5: 25 – 26 November
Matchday 6: 9 – 10 December
Matchday 7: 20 – 21 January 2026
Matchday 8: 28 January 2026
An official fixture list with match dates and kick-off times will be published no later than Saturday August 30, according to UEFA.
