Champions League Fixtures Declared Void & Redrawn After Blunder

By Gary Cassidy • Published 13th December 2021
UEFA Champions League

The UEFA Champions League draw had to be scrapped and re-done today after an embarrassing technical blunder saw Manchester United left out of the initial draw until the latter stages.

A mouth-watering initial draw saw Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi pitted head-to-head as PSG and Manchester United were drawn together, but it quickly emerged that the odds of that tie happening were enhanced due to the Premier League side being wrongly omitted from some of the draws.

The initial, now void, draw was as follows:

Benfica v Real Madrid
Villarreal v Man City
Atletico v Bayern
Salzburg v Liverpool
Inter Milan v Ajax
Sporting v Juventus
Chelsea v Lille
PSG v Man United

UEFA then issued a statement on the matter.

“Following a technical problem with the software of an external service provider that instructs the officials as to which teams are eligible to play each other, a material error occurred in the draw for the UEFA Champions League Round of 16. As a result of this, the draw has been declared void and will be entirely redone at 1500 CET.”

The entire Round of 16 was then redrawn due to the botch, with one tie being drawn the same as the first time round.

The Champions League Round of 16 ties were drawn as follows:

PSG v Real Madrid
Salzburg v Bayern
Sporting v v Man City
Benfica v Ajax
Chelsea v Lille
Atletico v Man United
Villarreal v Juventus
Inter Milan v Liverpool

The first legs will be spread out across 15, 16, 22 and 23 February, with the second legs on 8, 9, 15 and 16 March.

One major major change which comes into effect in this round is that the away goals rule has been removed, so ties level after 180 minutes will go to extra time. If the teams are still level after the additional 30 minutes, the tie goes to a penalty shootout.

This season’s Champions League final takes place in St Petersburg, Russia, on 28 May.