Champions League Draw: Why can't Liverpool host Real Madrid at Anfield this season?

Liverpool, Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Arsenal are among the 36 teams that will feature in Thursday's league phase draw for the 2026-27 Champions League.

The quartet of clubs, who are all multi-time Champions League finalists, will all feature in pot one of the draw. It effectively means they are all in Uefa's nine best-rated clubs that are featuring in the league phase of this season's competition.

However, a new rule introduced by Uefa for this season will limit a fixture possibility that affects all four clubs.

The league phase was introduced at the start of the 2024-25, and sees each team play eight times. Those matches consist of eight different opponents, with two coming from each of the four pots. Each team plays a home and away match against a team from each pot.

But starting from this year, a team is not permitted to host a side that they have previously played a league phase home match against in each of the previous two seasons.

Only two potential fixtures meet that criteria ahead of Thursday's draw. They are Liverpool vs Real Madrid and Inter Milan vs Arsenal.

In the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons, Liverpool faced Real Madrid at Anfield. The Reds won both of those matches 2-0 and 1-0 respectively.

Over the same two seasons, Inter have hosted the Gunners. Inter were 1-0 winners two seasons ago, but lost 3-1 last term on Arsenal's way to reaching their first Champions League final in 20 years.

What is Uefa's new rule that limits fixture repeats?

As posted in paragraph 16.03 of last season's Champions League regulations, this rule will take effect from this season onwards.

The regulations state: "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.

"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."

Thursday's draw will reveal who plays who, and which teams are home and away. Uefa will ensure that should either fixture happen, Liverpool and Inter Milan respectively would not host those matches.

The new rule does not prohibit clubs from being drawn against each other for three seasons in a row, it just limits clubs being the same home or away team for three consecutive seasons in that fixture.