UEFA announces change to Champions League seeding from next season

UEFA has announced that the seeding for the Champions League will change next season, with the champions from the top seven European leagues going into Pot One alongside the holders.

The current top seven European leagues according to UEFA's coefficients are as follows: Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France and Russia.

Had the regulations come into effect for the current Champions League campaign, Atletico Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Benfica, Paris Saint-Germain and CSKA Moscow would have all entered Pot One, alongside holders Real Madrid.

Instead, this season's top seeds come from just four different nations: Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid representing Spain, Chelsea and Arsenal representing England, Porto and Benfica representing Portugal, while Bayern Munich are Germany's lone representative.

The existing UEFA format means that seeding is based on the results of clubs competing in the five previous seasons of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League.

"It will be ratified later on by the executive committee but it's a clear recommendation of the club competition's committee that the seeding system changes in this respect as from next season," UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino said.

"The Champions League winners are number one and the seven next placed in Pot One are not the seven best ranked in the co-efficient but are the seven champions of the seven top-ranked nations in UEFA.

"This will give another dynamic with the draw and in the way the groups are composed. It will be approved with the regulations at the start of next year.

"The club committee felt that there should be somehow an additional award given to the winners of the different national competitions.

"It was maybe a bit difficult to understand especially in the last few years where the winner of the national league was not necessarily the best-ranked club.

"It happened in France and it happened in England, people had difficulties in understanding how the champion of a country is in a lower pot than the third ranked in that country.

"Football is about winning, it's about competition it's about sporting merit. I think it's kind of a natural thing to give to those who have won a competition a special treatment like this."

The topic of European club seeding was discussed during the UEFA Elite Club Coaches Forum last month amid complaints that draws were repeating themselves and the same teams were occupying higher pots despite not winning their domestic leagues.

"I don't necessarily think the seeding plays a great part," Sir Alex Ferguson said during the meeting in Nyon.

"You take what you get and your performance is the most important thing."

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini was one of those calling for UEFA to make the changes, citing Arsenal's constant appearance in Pot One as a flaw in the current system.


"Our group seems unbalanced," Pellegrini said last month. "In our group we have three domestic champions -- the English champions, the German champions and the Russian champions.

"I think we need to find a modification whereby, for example, all teams who play qualification go into Pot Four and all champions and those who have lots of points in Europe [a high coefficient] go into Pot One."

"There is a need for some modification to not let something like what happened to us happen again and then, on the other hand, for the teams who play preliminaries to not appear to be the most important ones in Europe."

UEFA is yet to confirm who would take the final spot in Pot One should the winners of the Champions League also win their domestic title.