A machine with AI will be used by UEFA to make the draw for the 2024–25 Champions League.
An AI machine will be used to draw the winners in the Champions League.
Will take place on August 29 in Monaco
The Champions League will be run in a new way.
Kaveh Solhekol, a reporter for Sky Sports, says that the UK-based IT company AE Live made the AI software, and Ernst & Young will check the draw. For the next season, the Champions League will be played in a league structure instead of the usual group stages. The game will include 36 teams instead of the usual 16. In a normal league, every team plays every other team both at home and away. But in the “league phase” of the Champions League, teams will only play eight different teams, with four games at home and four games away.
There are 36 teams, and they will be split into eight pots based on their seeds. First, clubs will be chosen by hand from each pot, and then the supercomputer will choose their eight league games. The computer has been set up to protect each country, so teams won’t be able to draw opponents from the same league. Each club will play no more than two teams from the same country. It is still UEFA’s opinion that the new software is safe from cyberattacks.
And it would have taken four hours, 1000 balls, and 36 glass bowls to do the draw by hand for the bigger version of the game. The draw will now only take 35 minutes, though, thanks to AI.
It’s almost time for the 2024–25 Champions League draw! It will happen at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco on Thursday, August 29, 2024.
