UEFA Champions League group stage draw

The 2023/24 UEFA Champions League group stage draw takes place at the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco, on Thursday 31 August and will be streamed live from 18:00 CET.

Purpose and conditions of the draw

The purpose of the group stage draw is to divide the 32 clubs into 8 groups of 4 teams. The groups will be lettered A to H.

The conditions to be observed are as follows:

• Clubs from the same country must not be drawn in the same group.

• In the case of associations with two representatives, these clubs will be paired in order to split their matches between the Tuesday and the Wednesday of each matchweek.

In the case of associations with three representatives, only two clubs will be paired.

In the case of associations with four or five representatives, two pairings will be made.

All these pairings will be based on TV audiences.

• Each team will play three matches on Tuesdays and three matches on Wednesdays.

• Each club plays one home and one away match against each other club in its group. A club does not play more than two home or two away matches in a row and each club plays one home match and one away match on the first two and last two matchdays. Club’s first leg matches should be completed before MD4.

Draw explanations

For the group stage draw, the 32 clubs involved are seeded in four pots of eight teams.

The first pot comprises the titleholder (Manchester City), the UEFA Europa League titleholder (Sevilla FC) and the domestic champions of Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Portugal and Netherlands.

The other three pots are composed in accordance with the club coefficient rankings established at the beginning of the season.

To ensure that paired clubs from the same country play on separate days, as per the aforementioned pairing principles, the eight groups will be distinguished by colour: groups A to D will be red and groups E to H will be blue.

When a paired club is drawn, for example, in one of the red groups (A, B, C or D), the other paired club – once it has been drawn – will automatically be assigned to one of the four blue groups (E, F, G or H).

The red groups and the blue groups will necessarily play in two different match sequences.

Draw procedure

Pot 1

Starting with Pot 1, a ball is drawn at random and is opened to display the name of the team drawn.

This team is placed in the first available group in alphabetical order from A to H as indicated by the computer.

This procedure is then repeated for all the remaining clubs in Pot 1.

For example, if the team drawn has all group options from A to H available, it is automatically allocated to Group A. If the team drawn has four options available, from E to H for example, it is automatically allocated to Group E. If the team drawn has two options available, G or H for example, it is automatically allocated to Group G.

Pots 2 to 4

The draw then moves to Pot 2, where again a ball is drawn at random and is opened to display the name of the team drawn.

The computer then indicates which groups are available for this club, and a bowl is prepared containing balls representing each of the groups into which the club could be drawn. One ball is drawn from this bowl to determine which of the available groups the team will play in. If only one group is available to a team, no draw will be made and the team will automatically be assigned to that group.

Please note that the options available to a team depends not only on the team’s own attributes and those of the clubs already drawn, but also on the attributes of the other clubs still to be drawn. This is enabled by computer calculations, which are needed to anticipate all possible scenarios and prevent any deadlock situations.

The process is repeated for the remaining clubs in Pot 2, and once all the clubs in Pot 2 have been drawn, the same procedure is used for the clubs in Pots 3 and 4, in that order.

The draw result and full fixture list (matchdays 1 to 6) will be available on Saturday 2 September by 12:00 CET at the latest.

Additional information

A video will be shown prior to the draw explaining the key principles of the draw.

Pots and pairings

Pot 1

Manchester City (ENG) – pairing A
Sevilla FC (ESP) – B
FC Barcelona (ESP) – C
SSC Napoli (ITA) – D
FC Bayern München (GER) – E
Paris Saint-Germain (FRA) – F
SL Benfica (POR) – G
Feyenoord (NED) – H

Pot 2

Real Madrid CF (ESP) – C
Manchester United (ENG) – A
FC Internazionale Milano (ITA) – I
Borussia Dortmund (GER) – E
Club Atlético de Madrid (ESP) – B
RB Leipzig (GER) – J
FC Porto (POR) – G
Arsenal FC (ENG) – K

Pot 3

FC Shakhtar Donetsk (UKR)
FC Salzburg (AUT)
AC Milan (ITA) – I
SC Braga (POR)
PSV Eindhoven (NED) – H
S.S. Lazio (ITA) – D
FK Crvena zvezda (SRB)
F.C. Copenhagen (DEN)

Pot 4

BSC Young Boys (SUI)
Real Sociedad de Fútbol (ESP)
Galatasaray A.Ş. (TUR)
Celtic FC (SCO)
Newcastle United FC (ENG) – K
1. FC Union Berlin (GER) – J
Royal Antwerp FC (BEL)
RC Lens (FRA) – F