New Champions League format risks devaluing currency of major match-ups | Jonathan Wilson

The biggest teams facing each other more often is in danger of only serving the interests of Uefa, and not of football

There is an argument that for a few years the draw has been the best bit of the group stage of the Champions League. Here they are, the Fates, the sleek besuited former players, smiling and speaking only in corporate banalities, shaping destiny through the medium of miniature plastic footballs and glass bowls.

And there’s the ringmaster, the Italian deputy general secretary of Uefa, Giorgio Marchetti, with his Eurotrivia and unlikely catchphrases, “a very nice draw” and “…according to the established protocols”. His appearance is benign, but then we thought that of his predecessor; could he be plotting a coup to take over world football?

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