When is the Champions League draw and who is in each pot?

What the report says

BBC Sport says the draw for the 2026-27 Champions League league phase will take place on Thursday, 27 August at 17:00 BST in Monaco. The league phase will feature 36 clubs, with 29 already confirmed and seven more to be decided by qualifiers finishing next week.

The report explains that teams will be split into four pots according to Uefa club coefficient rankings, based on results over the five seasons ending in 2025-26. Each club will be drawn against eight different opponents, meeting two teams from each pot, with four home matches and four away matches. Clubs cannot be paired with another team from their own country. The top eight in the league phase will go directly to the round of 16, while teams placed ninth to 24th will go into a knockout play-off round. Teams finishing 25th to 36th will be eliminated.

BBC Sport lists the confirmed teams in each pot. Pot one includes Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal, Paris St-Germain, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid. Pot two includes Aston Villa and Manchester United, along with Borussia Dortmund, Roma, Sporting, Porto, Club Brugge, Real Betis and PSV Eindhoven.

Pot three and pot four still depend partly on qualifying results. The article highlights several ties, including Celtic against LASK and Bodo/Glimt against NEC Nijmegen, that will determine the final places. The draw matters because it sets each club’s route through the first stage of Europe’s top club competition.