The Champions League draw happens Thursday in Monaco, but the real conversation starts two hours before the ceremony. UEFA's 55 member federations are gathering to formally put a lid on their threatened boycott of FIFA competitions — a standoff triggered by president Gianni Infantino's attempt to quietly sell stakes in World Cup revenue to private investors, a scheme that collapsed under the weight of its own secrecy.
Infantino won't be there. The man who used to run this draw as UEFA's general secretary is now the subject of a no-confidence verdict from European football's leadership. He's up for reelection in March. Whether he survives it is a different story.
The draw itself: what you actually need to know
Thirty-six teams. Eight opponents each — four home, four away, two pulled from each seeding pot. No domestic opponents paired together. The league phase runs September through January, with a final round on the 27th. Top eight go straight to the last 16 in March. Ninth through 24th enter knockout playoffs in February. Twenty-fifth to 36th go home.
PSG head Pot 1 as holders, alongside Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City, Inter Milan, and Atletico Madrid. That's not padding — that's genuinely the deepest Pot 1 in years. Any team drawing two or three of those sides in the league phase will feel it in the standings, and in the odds market.
Pot 2 has its own teeth: Dortmund, Roma, Aston Villa, Manchester United, PSV. Pot 3 brings Napoli, Galatasaray, Fenerbahce, and Feyenoord — sides that can make life awkward for anyone. The draw really can make or break a team's path to the knockout rounds before a ball is kicked.
The four newcomers and a coach with an unusual origin story
Four clubs debut in the competition proper this season: Como (Italy, coached by Cesc Fabregas), LASK (Austria), Viking (Norway), and Sabah (Azerbaijan) — a club that didn't exist until 2017.
Sabah's coach Valdas Dambrauskas won enough money on Lithuania's version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire to fund a coaching course in England. That's the actual origin story. The Champions League has seen stranger paths, but not many.
There's a genuine first on the other side of the draw too. Yaya Touré — yes, that Yaya Touré — guided Slovan Bratislava through their qualifying playoff, becoming the first African coach to take a club into the Champions League main phase. His Slovan side lands in Pot 4, which means they could face Real Madrid, Bayern, or PSG in the league phase. That's a steep debut for a manager still building his coaching CV.
- Pot 1: PSG, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Manchester City, Arsenal, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid
- Pot 2: Borussia Dortmund, Roma, Sporting Lisbon, Aston Villa, Porto, Manchester United, Club Brugge, Real Betis, PSV Eindhoven
- Pot 3: Feyenoord, Lille, Napoli, Leipzig, Villarreal, Fenerbahce, Shakhtar Donetsk, Galatasaray
- Pot 4: Slavia Prague, Slovan Bratislava, Stuttgart, AEK Athens, LASK, Como, Lens, Viking, Sabah
The 36 clubs share prize money of around €2.5 billion. The draw starts at 6 p.m. local time in Monaco — 4 p.m. GMT.
One other figure worth watching in the room: PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, regularly floated as a future FIFA president. He hasn't declared any interest. But with Infantino's position looking shakier by the month, the Monaco gathering may tell us something about what European football's power structure actually wants next.
