Overview
- First‑leg play‑offs have tilted the balance in several ties, with Club Brugge winning 3-1 at Rangers, Bodo/Glimt routing Sturm Graz 5-0 and Pafos edging Red Star 2-1, while others remain level before next week’s second legs.
- The draw begins at 6pm BST on Thursday, August 28 at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, and UEFA will publish the full fixture list with dates and kick‑off times by August 30.
- Teams are seeded into four pots by UEFA coefficients, then software selects two opponents from each pot to create eight single‑meeting fixtures per club under constraints that bar same‑association pairings and limit opponents from one country.
- Pot 1 features Paris Saint‑Germain, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund and Barcelona.
- Six Premier League clubs are in the field — Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea, Newcastle and Europa League winners Tottenham — with prize money confirmed at about £1.77m per win and £590,000 per draw, and the final set for May 30, 2026 in Budapest.