In an unprecedented incident, the federation made a mistake by placing the names of the teams in the bowl, to result in a “prohibited” confrontation between two teams that should not face each other according to the laws, and then ignoring the situation of Manchester United’s “ball” during the withdrawal of the name of the team that will face Atletico Madrid.
Sources confirmed that the draw will be repeated later on Monday, after UEFA acknowledged the fatal mistake.
“After a technical problem occurred in an external program that directs officials to qualified teams to play each other, an error occurred in the lottery,” UEFA said in a statement.
The statement confirmed that the lottery was considered “invalid”, and it will be returned in full on Monday noon.
What happened?
After the name of the Spanish club Villarreal was withdrawn, the guest of the draw Andrei Arshavin withdrew the name of Manchester United, following the instructions of the officials.
This confrontation is “taboo”, because the two teams were in one group in the first round, which means that putting Manchester United in the pot was wrong.
After the strange situation, the officials, who were in a state of confusion, quickly returned the Manchester United ball to the other pot, and withdrew the name of a new team, Manchester City, which signed against Villarreal.
After a while, the draw drew Manchester United against Paris Saint-Germain, at an expected summit, prompting the “Red Devils” administration to contact UEFA to demand the return of the lottery, which “did not do justice to it”.
second mistake
And the errors of the draw continued, when the name of Atletico Madrid was withdrawn, as Manchester United’s name was not put in the pot of potential competitors.
Subsequently, Atletico Madrid signed against Bayern Munich, while ignoring Manchester United led to their fall to Paris Saint-Germain.
Will the lottery be repeated?
The media is reporting on the possibility of repeating the draw for the 16th round of the Champions League, after some technical errors occurred during the draw.
And the website “The Athletic” reported that there was a state of tension in the lottery hall and the headquarters of the European Union “Wifa”, while officials of Manchester United and other clubs, contacted the federation, to decide on the replay.
