Barcelona, Chelsea, Bayern, Juventus, Benfica, PSG, Zenit St. Petersburg and PSV, the winners of Europe's eight biggest leagues this season, will all be top seeds in next season's Champions League group stage draw.
Following a change to the rules governing the selection of top seeds, which was approved by UEFA's Executive Committee, those will be the teams in pot 1 for the draw for Europe's top club competition, which is scheduled to take place in Monaco on 28th August.
Under the new rules, from next season, the tops seeds will be the winners of the seven European league championships with the highest UEFA coefficient, which are currently Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France and Russia.
The final top seed will be the tournament winner, but given that both Barcelona and Juventus, this season's two finalists, have already won La Liga and Serie respectively, UEFA will include PSV Eindhoven, the winners of the league ranked eighth - The Netherlands Eredivisie - in pot 1.
In the past, seeding was decided by each team's UEFA coefficient. That system will remain unchanged for the other three pots when the draw takes place in Monaco on 28th August, which means that Real Madrid, who are already guaranteed a place in the Champions League group stages as La Liga runners-up, will take their place in pot 2.

This will make the groups unpredectibe as we can witness Juventus, Madrid, Arsenal, Monaco as a possible group, or Chelsea, Wolfsbug, Atletico Madrid, Monaco. ( more group of deaths )
But having group of death make some other groups cool groups : PSV, As Roma, Schalke, Maribor for example...

What this inspires you ? Im totally for it, having 3 strong teams competing for 2 places or even 4 would be fun...

What do you think about it ? Also if Sevilla wins EL this year, we will witness for the first time 5 teams from the same country, considering they cant face in group stage we will witness 1 team at almost all groups ( 5 out of 8 ) that will be really intertaining specially watching the draws...

I don't like it. Just more chances of the really good teams to be knocked out early and unable to participate late into the tournament. Imagine Real Madrid or Chelsea in the EL... that would be ridiculous. I fully believe that the old seeding was perfectly fine, and there was nothing wrong with it.

Madrid would get through even if they face Big teams, thats not a knock out, from the 6 games Madrid would have high chances to finish first as usual. That will get more complicated for others, but contenders wont be affected...

Good for the Champions League name. But poor because of the better teams to stand at the lower seeds obviously.

although it makes our chances of progressing lower this is fair as now the lower teams will have a fair chance of winning it and real madrid and chelsea in the same group would really be painful for one of us

^painful? we're dead meat if we get Real Madrid in our group. LOL

Nonsense... plain nonsense.

We will just have ridiculous groups sorting and some other really bad ones.

CL is veeery different from leagues around Europe. Often we see a Champions of a certain league without any experience in the CL being knocked out at an early stage so what is the point?

At least the group stage matches will earn more revenue now...

I feel like some weaker teams will progress to the knockout stages because of favorable groups, and then the bigger teams who face them (e.g. Barca, Madrid) will have an easier time getting to the final. So it is entirely possible for a team to have a rough group stage experience, but a very smooth knockout phase experience.

I say we judge after 1 or 2 seasons with this format. It sounds like a good change in my opinion

You do realize there will not be many changes, right?
Only alternations are going to be:
Juventus, Zenit and PSV in;
Atletico Madrid, Porto and Arsenal(if they finish 3rd) out of the 1st seed.
The others will remain the same.
Juventus to the First seed is actually sounds better. Can't say the same about the other two tho.

@jimbet good mentality... it will be a difficult game for both teams not only us

@Emre

You forgot Real Madrid in 2nd seed, which is probably the biggest change of all...

@Dynastian98 Oh, that's right. So Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Porto are out of the 1st seed. I didn't even consider that. I have never seen Real Madrid out of the 1st seed in my life.

Simply don't like it. Good teams (etc. Real Madrid) now can be knocked out so early. While weaker teams can go in knockout stages because of easy group...

is this possible then:

barcelona
real madrid
arsenal
united

I actually like this new system. It might help to break the negative spiral in which smaller leagues are (average team, no CL knock-out qualification, less money, team gets worse, etc.). Teams from Russia, the Netherlands and Belgium might finally make it to the knock-outs without having to beat PSG or Barcelona, Real or M City, etc. It will make the CL less predictable and more interesting for me.

The good thing about this system is:

• Weak team has a chance to go further. So we might have some boring knockout matches.
• Things might get a bit more unpredictable. But not in the knock-out,
• We have more groups of death to enjoy...
• Some club might get SO unlucky that it's not fun any more (it's sad)... probably Arsenal.

The bad thing about it is:

• The first / supposed to be a good point is actually a BAD point to me.
• If you want to see mediocre team has more chances.. may be consider Europa League?
• When the group stage goes in the favor of the weak teams, the knockout stage will be too damn predictable. We dont want this.

I here your points with attention, if there is some winners in this change, then they will be some loosers too from it.
The contenders wont be affected because they dont really care who they will face till the final, but this will strenghten EL with some quality third places and give financial chances and visibility to some clubs that won their league and got a good draws...

For a Spanish team this is good because Spain had 3 pot1 teams, so they wont meet any way because they are from the same country, but some pot 1 teams will have to get tested early in group stage drawing Madrid or Atletico...

Madrid in pot 2 ? Alright they are still the favourites over any pot1 they draw and this is the entertainment for me :) Pot 1 teams will stress now for their qualification and watch the draw with attention.
If some League fans thinks their league is strong ( the strongest ) this will not change anything, some teams regulraly have easy draws to 1/8 finals and got knocked out while Ajax for example always draw ( Barça/PSG ) kind of teams, give a good fight but still has no chance togo through, this will make some justice in draw.

Im not happy because Madrid is pot 2, i dontmind seeing Barça in pot 2 next year that wont change many things really, and its good to have a quality team in group stage so a team can test their actual level in November and work on their weaknesses preparing for March...

Can someone clarify does this mean Arsenal will be in pot 3 & Man Utd in pot 4 ? (assuming Arsenal don't lose 0-3 and Man Utd win 0-4 in the last game)

@DecentK only pot 1 has this champions logic, pot 2-3-4 will work by Uefa club coefficient, Means that Arsenal will be in pot 2 despite being 3rd.

^Cheers understood.