UEFA BAN Liverpool from hosting Real Madrid in Champions League due to new rule

Liverpool will welcome Real Madrid to Anfield in the Champions League on a night that Trent Alexander-Arnold might not be looking forwards to. But this season's Merseyside clash does mean that they CANNOT face off at Anfield again should both be in next season's league phase.

The pair have been pitted against each other in two successive campaigns following the format overhaul. The Reds triumphed 2-0 on Merseyside last November and will welcome Madrid once more in the coming months after they were paired together in Thursday's draw.

It will be the 13th occasion they have clashed in European football's premier club competition, with all bar one occurring within the past 16 years. However, only two previous meetings - in 2014 - were in the group stages. Their other meetings were all part of the knockout stages, including three finals (1981, 2021 and 2022).

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They will not, though, meet at Anfield again during the league phase next season, in accordance with paragraph 16.03 of the UEFA Champions League regulations.

It states that the "UEFA administration may determine alternative conditions for the draw in accordance with the principles set by the Club Competitions Committee and may adapt any of the conditions of the draw to avoid deadlock situations and/or take into account any relevant constraints in light of decisions taken by the UEFA Executive Committee."

As part of the draw procedure adopted, "the UEFA Club Competitions Committee has determined an additional condition that may be applicable to the UEFA Champions League draw for the 2026/27 season, deciding that any individual fixture between the same two teams may not be repeated in the same competition with the same home team for three consecutive seasons.

"This means that if any teams that already played against each other in the league phase of the UEFA Champions League in the 2024/25 season are again drawn against each other, with the same home team, in the league phase of the UEFA Champions League in this 2025/26 season, those teams will not be able to be drawn against each other with the same home team in the 2026/27 season (although, for the sake of clarity, those teams could still be drawn against each other at the venue of the other team)."

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