New Champions League draw software braced for Russian cyberattack

The British company that has designed the new automated software for this season’s Champions League draw is braced for a cyberattack from Russia.
AE Live has put additional security measures in place to ensure that Thursday evening’s draw, which will be the first of its kind for Uefa, goes ahead without a hitch at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.
The Champions League draw, which will be undertaken by ambassadors Cristiano Ronaldo and Gianluigi Buffon, will signal the start of a new format for the competition, with each club playing eight games instead of six as in previous years, with four at home and four away. Those fixtures will be decided by a computer system rather than the traditional method of balls being picked out of a pot.
That, of course, opens up the possibility of a Russian cyberattack, which was put to Dave Gill, chief technology officer at AE Live. He admitted that it had been considered, but that they know it will be secure. Gill explained that they had taken all necessary steps to ensure the software will be safe for the three draws (Champions League, Europa League and Conference League), which take place on Thursday evening and Friday afternoon.
“We’re taking cyber security incredibly seriously,” said Gill. “Clearly, this is a sensitive issue. I’m reluctant to go into details about what we’re doing, but I can assure you we have taken all steps we can to make sure this is as safe and secure as possible.”
Gill revealed that his company had experienced a supply chain attack when working for Fifa around the World Cup draw for Qatar 2022 a couple of months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
‘We’ve experienced this. We’ve been through risk assessments and put precautions in place,’ he said.
AE Live was awarded the contract for this new draw format in September 2023 and said it had since been through millions of simulations to ensure it is perfect ahead of the launch. It has worked on numerous draws before across many sports, including football, cricket and rugby.
Each team, from all four pots, will be picked out manually at first before the computer then generates the eight teams they will face and which ones will be at home and away, with the clubs playing two teams from each pot. The same rules apply that teams from the same countries cannot be drawn against each other, while teams can face a maximum of two clubs from a different association.
While the number of games has increased from six to eight, the other big change for match-going supporters, who are normally waiting on tenterhooks to book their flights and accommodation, is when the fixtures will be confirmed. While the opponents will be clarified on Thursday, the match schedule is not expected to be released until Saturday, and it will not mirror the way the draw was made, so supporters can’t start to second-guess and begin booking their flights ahead of time.
At this stage no time frame has been put on when the fixtures will be confirmed, but Uefa officials said they would work as fast as possible to get them out as early as they can on Saturday. The first games will be played between September 17 and 19, while the last round of the eight games will all be played on January 29.
Uefa officials said the schedule for all three competitions could not be released until after the two draws on Friday. Aritz Aduriz and Glenn Strömberg are the ambassadors undertaking the Europa League draw, while Michal Zewlakow and Christian Karembeu will undertake the draw for the Conference League.