Champions League 2025-26 draw: When it is, pots, live stream & procedure explained

Paris Saint-Germain won the first edition of the revamped Champions League last season, and they will be eager to defend their title in 2025-26, but a long road lies ahead of the French giants, as Europe's elite get set to battle it out once again.

Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, to name but a few, will no doubt be in the mix, as will the likes of Barcelona, Arsenal and Inter, while Club World Cup champions Chelsea could be dark horses too.

Here, GOAL brings you everything you need to know about the draw for the 2025-26 Champions League, including pots, where to watch and more.

Champions League 2025-26 draw: Key details

The draw for the league phase of the 2025-26 Champions League will take place on Thursday, August 28, 2025, at 5 pm BST (12 noon ET).

As is customary, the Champions League draw is held at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.

Where to watch the draw - live stream & TV channel

Fans in the United States who have a Paramount+ account can stream the draw live on that platform or watch it live on CBS Sports Golazo. All Champions League games (as well as those in the Europa League and Europa Conference League) will be available to watch on Paramount+, CBS Sports and CBS Sports Golazo this season.

In the United Kingdom, the draw will be broadcast live on TNT Sports 1, as well as being available to stream on discovery+ or Amazon Prime Video. TNT Sports is the home of Champions League football in the UK.

The draw is also streamed live internationally by UEFA itself, on its official website uefa.com and associated social media channels.

Furthermore, if you are unable to stream the draw, GOAL will be providing live updates here.

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What are the seeding pots for the Champions League draw?

Teams are divided into four pots of nine teams. The seeding pots, including number, team and national association, can be seen below.

Pot One

Pot Two

Pot Three

Pot Four

How does the Champions League draw work?

If you can't remember how the draw works from last season, fear not! We will break it down simply for you. It is a hybrid draw, combining manual human intervention (the act of physically drawing a team from a pot) and automated software. UEFA has also posted a handy explainer video if you need some more clarity.

Each team in the competition will play eight different opponents, with four games played at home and four games played away.

• So, to start, a ball is drawn manually from Pot One. The software then randomly selects eight opponents - two from each pot - as well as assigning which games will be played at home and which will be played away. This process is then repeated for the remaining teams in Pot One.
• The draw then moves on to Pot Two, and the same procedure is followed, with a ball being manually drawn and the software randomly drawing opponents. Since two teams from Pot One will already be determined, the software draws two opponents from each of Pots Two, Three and Four.
• The same process is then applied to Pot Three and finally on to Pot Four to complete the draw.

Are there any restrictions?

There are some restrictions in place, which are baked into the software. They are:

• During the League Phase, teams from the same national association cannot be paired together. Therefore, Liverpool will not be drawn against Chelsea, and Real Madrid will not play Barcelona at this point in the competition.
• Teams can be paired with no more than two teams from the same association.

Got it? Now enjoy the drama of the draw, and let us know who you want to get in the comments.