The group stage draw for Europe’s most prestigious club competition will be made in Monday on August 28 and both Sky Sports and British Eurosport will be screening live coverage as the 2014/15 UEFA Champions League season fast approaches.
Premier League champions Manchester City, along with Liverpool and Chelsea, have already sealed their place in the group stages, with the Blues, winners of the competition in 2012, to be drawn out of pot 1, meaning they avoid the likes of European powerhouses such as current holders Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Barcelona.
Manchester City and Liverpool will be drawn out of pots 2 and 3 respectively, meaning there is a possibility they could be drawn against the top teams in Europe, while Arsenal go into pot 1, despite entering the group phase via their play-off stage win against Turkish side Besiktas, due to their superior record in the competition over the last five years.
Ten play-off winners join the 22 automatic entrants in the group stage draw, where the 32 sides are split into four seeding pots and one from each is drawn into the eight groups.
Seedings are based on UEFA’s coefficient ranking system with 2014 winners Real Madrid ranked number 1, followed by Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Chelsea, and no team can meet another from the same association during the group phase.
Sky Sports News HQ will be screening live coverage of the draw ceremony, staged at the Grimaldi Forum in Monte Carlo, which will also be simulcast on Sky Sports 5, the network’s new ‘home of European football’ which will be the place to watch the majority of its televised Champions League matches this season.
Jim White hosts a special 90-minute programme on both channels, where he will be joined for expert comment by Dietmar Hamann, Charlie Nicholas, Alan McInally and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.
British Eurosport 2 also has full live coverage of the draw from Monaco, while live streaming and updates from the proceedings will be available via the official UEFA website – UEFA.com.
The draw ceremony itself will be hosted by 1999 Champions League winner Peter Schmeichel and Melanie Winiger, assisted by UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino, and include the presentation of the 2013/14 UEFA Best Player in Europe Award, for which Manuel Neuer, Arjen Robben and Cristiano Ronaldo are nominated.
Alongside the Champions League draw, the following day sees the group stage draw for the 2014/15 UEFA Europa League, which will be shown live in full on British Eurosport 2.
Tottenham Hotspur and Hull City will be aiming to join fellow British representatives Everton and Celtic in the group stage by qualifying via the play-off round, with the second legs of their ties taking place the night before.
This season’s UEFA Champions League, which kicks off with the opening matchday on September 16-17, will be shown across ITV and Sky Sports, with ITV screening the first pick of Tuesday’s matches, while Sky Sports will screen every other match on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Both broadcasters, who have shared coverage of the competition since 2003, get set for their final season covering live matches from Europe’s premier club competition before the rights pass over to BT Sport from 2015/16.
In the Europa League, ITV and BT Sport will share the rights from matchday 1 to the final, with ITV again screening first and second pick matches, including both semi-finals and the final exclusively live.
EUROPEAN FOOTBALL ON THE BOX – LIVE LISTINGS
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Thursday 28th August
UEFA Champions League: Group Stage Draw – Start: 16:45 BST
LIVE: 4.30pm-6.00pm Sky Sports News HQ / Sky Sports 5
LIVE: 4.45pm-5.30pm British Eurosport 2
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Friday 29th August
UEFA Europa League: Group Stage Draw – Start: 12:00 BST
LIVE: 12.00pm-1.00pm British Eurosport 2
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