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SirStanleyBowles- 08-23-2006
Clubs await Champions League draw
At least four British clubs will be involved when the draw for the Champions League group stages takes place on Thursday at 1700 BST. Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Celtic are definitely among the 32 clubs in the draw. Arsenal and Hearts will join them if they come through the second legs of their qualifiers on Wednesday. United, Liverpool and Arsenal, if they qualify, are top seeds, while Celtic and Chelsea will be seeded second. It means Premiership champions Chelsea could find themselves in the same group as Barcelona, who knocked them out of last year's competition, Real Madrid or Inter Milan. The draw will be missing Juventus for the first time in seven years after the Italian giants were banned from the Champions League for their role in the Italian match-fixing scandal. However, AC Milan, who were also banned but then reinstated on appeal, will compete after coming through their qualifying rounds. Uefa splits the 32 entrants into four pots of eight teams, divided according to their current European ranking. Each group will contain one team from the top seeds, one from the second seeds, one for the third and one from the fourth. The draw for the group stages will take place on 24 August in Monaco. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clubs in the Champions League group stages (in order of seeding):* AC Milan Barcelona Real Madrid Inter Milan Liverpool Manchester United Valencia Lyon Porto PSV Eindhoven Bayern Munich Chelsea Roma Celtic Sporting Lisbon Benfica Bordeaux Werder Bremen Olympiakos Anderlecht Hamburg * Eleven clubs will join them after Wednesday's final qualifying games