Preamble: Hello and welcome to today's Champions League draw. I'll get started properly from 4.30pm, ahead of the draw at 5pm, but if you're new to these draws, here's a quick lowdown:

* Teams are seeded based on their Uefa co-effieicent

* Teams from the same country cannot be drawn into the same group.

* Teams from the same national association will be split across days. So, as England have four teams, two will play on Tuesdays and two on Wednesdays.

* And Manchester United always, always get an easy draw.

Pot one: FC Barcelona, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, AC Milan, Arsenal, Sevilla, Bayern München

Pot two: Olympique Lyonnais, Internazionale, Real Madrid, CSKA Moskva, FC Porto, AZ Alkmaar, Juventus, Rangers

Pot three: Olympiacos, Olympique de Marseille, FC Dynamo Kyiv, VfB Stuttgart, Fiorentina, Atlético de Madrid, Girondins de Bordeaux, Beşiktaş

Pot four: VfL Wolfsburg, Standard de Liège, Maccabi Haifa, FC Zürich, FC Rubin Kazan, Unirea Urziceni, Apoel, Debreceni

4.30pm: Good afternoon one and all. On Sky Sports News, Georgie Thompson is discussing Not Football, but their yellow "breaking news" ticker assures me the Champions League draw is "coming up". Does that qualify as breaking news? We've known the draw would be at 5pm today for some time. Georgie is looking as well, as ever, and why wouldn't she be, what with her knocking about with Ant or Dec. I'm not sure which of them he is, but you'll know him as the one that always stands on Ant's left. On Georgie's right, Ed Chamberlain is also looking well. He's wearing a blue tie.

An email from Dominic Smith: "United will get AZ Alkmaar, Besiktas and Debreceni. Liverpool will get Real Madrid, Marseille and Wolfsburg. Fact."

4.35pm: In the Sky Sports studio, a crack panel comprised of journalist Keir Radnedge and former pros Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Charlie Nicholas has been assembled to give their comments on the draw. Expect to read their more erudite views here, masquerading as my own.

4.36pm: "Any word of practice draw results, so we can get our conspiracy theories prepared?" asks D Benson. I haven't heard anything, but Charlie Nicholas reckons one of the English clubs is bound to get drawn with Real Madrid. It'd be nice to think it would be Manchester United, for obvious reasons, but they don't get drawn against good teams in the Champions League group stages.

4.39pm: Only 21 minutes to go and I don't know about you, but I can barely contain my apathy. Graeme Gebbie has written in to say that he agrees with Charlie Nicholas. "Do you not think that Man United are 100% guaranteed to draw Real Madrid today?" he asks. "Thats the feeling I've got anyway. Uefa always try to get a draw with a bit of glamour in an attempt to spice up the group stage. Chelsea could be 'paired' with Inter Milan due to the whole Mourinho factor." I'm not sure I approve of the tacit suggestion that Uefa draws might not be above board.

Look! Look! Look! Here's a Champions League gallery, including pen pictures of each of the 32 clubs involved, written by Paul Doyle. Oh ... and here's today's Fiver, for anyone who fancies something a little less cerebral.

Gary Naylor is in the house: "I don't want to come over all Rob Smyth," he writes, getting the words "all" and "over" in the wrong order. "But I find it fascinating that my new toy tells me that ten years ago, 28 English players graced the Champions League. Last year, things had moved on to such an extent that 29 English players got to do that handshaking thing along the line. All that foreign coaching, all that learning from the overseas technicians in the midfield, all that work by the FA and exactly one extra player was good enough to get a starting slot in the world's biggest annual football tournament."

4.50pm: "How does Dominic Smith already know the draw?" asks Ben Shipman. "Could he let me know who Arsenal will get because the suspense is killing me? I think it's suspense anyway."

4.51pm: "I hate the seeding," writes Thomas Cope. "The seeding makes the group phase mind-numbingly predictable and boring." On the subject of mind-numbingly boring and predictable stuff, Thomas then asks

"is the Football Weekley Extra Pod waiting for the draw before is launches into near earth orbit?" No Tom, we recorded it this morning. Producer Pete is editing out all my good jokes and inserting some tortured analogies on Sean Ingle's behalf as I type, but it should be up on the site any minute now.

4.53pm: In an email marked "Poinhtless Champions League nostalgia", Richard Jones asks: "Why are there no Scandinavian clubs in the CL group stages these days? Gothenburg used to be in it every year back in the mid-90s. They produced some fine sides, which were generally made up entirely of Swedes, too. I seem to recall them giving Manchester United a good cuffing once, possibly in 1994. And Rosenborg weren't too bad either. The eastern Europeans have taken over, it seems. Is it because they can have as many non-EU players as they like, so are full of Brazilians and Argentinians?"

4.56pm: "With some of the muck that's made it into pot 4, you must be crestfallen not to see Birr Town Football Club in there," writes Adam Murphy, referencing my home-town team, an outfit that is (well, was) so bad I was their right-back for a couple of years at U12 level. We got beaten 13-1 by Athlone Town on one particular day and the guy I was marking bagged himself a brace ... of hat-tricks.

5pm: "I met Producer Pete at a party a few months ago and he seemed like a nice guy," writes Tom Chivers. "That is literally the whole story. But since you're reporting live on some middle-aged men doing a raffle I figured your threshold for boredom was pretty high." This just in: Fulham have lost the second leg of their Europa League qualifier against FC Perm or whoever it was they were playing, but have won the tie 3-2 on aggregate. Is that good news for Fulham or bad news for Fulham? It's difficult to tell.

5.05pm: Proceedings are getting underway in the Grimandi forum in Monaco, where a very attractive woman in a black dress and a man with teeth and hair are addressing an audience that has probably just finished lunch and looking forward to dinner.

5.06pm: I'm reliably informed by my man Ed Chamberlain that Spanish legend Emilio Butragueno will be conducting today's draw.

5.10pm: No sign of any balls been drawn from the tombola, which is strange. It's not like them to drag out these jamborees. "I thought I'd type up some phrases so you can copy and paste them later," writes Kev Williams.



"Group Of Death", "They won't be looking forward to that long flight", "Returns home" and "Meets his old adversary".

5.12pm: Edwin van der Sar and Emilio Butragueno are now on stage with the very attractive woman in the black dress and the man with teeth and the hair. As they hover near the pots of plastic balls, a middle-aged blazer from Scotland is giving a bit of a speech. Not long now ...

5.15pm: The middle-aged blazer is now explaining the rules of the draw. This could take a while. The camera pans across his audience, many of whom look orange of hue and very bored of dispoisiton.

Group A: Bayern Munich, Juventus, Bordeaux , Maccabi Haifa

Group B: Manchester United, CSKA Moscow, Besiktas, Wolfsburg

Group C: AC Milan, Real Madrid, Marseille, FC Zurich

Group D: Chelsea, Porto, Atletico Madrid, Apoel FC

Group E: Liverpool, Lyon, Fiorentina, Debreceni

Group F: Barcelona, Internazionale, Dynamo Kiev, FC Rubin Kazan

Group G: Sevilla, Rangers, VfB Stuttgart, Unirea Uriziceni

Group H: Arsenal, AZ Alkmaar, Olympiakos, Standard Liege

Jesus wept. They've interrupted the draw so Uefa president Michel Platini can present an award to Paolo Maldini. I'm going to be here until midnight.

5.25pm: "What happens if Millwall and West Ham end up in the same group?" asks John Potts, pertinently. Meanwhile, the full horror of what I've let myself in for here is gradually unfolding. Having received an award for himself, Paolo Maldini is now presenting England's Brave John Terry with the European Club Defender of the Year award. It's just an orgy of mutual backslapping. Where's my award?

5.28pm: "The unbelievably attractive woman in the black dress is former Miss Switzerland Melanie Winiger," writes Jean-Claude Gerber. "Proving there are more important things besides football."

5.33pm: So Rangers are off to Seville. There are some lovely churches, grottos and shrines to the Virgin Mary that their fans will be able to visit when they go over there. Lots of orange groves too, so they'll feel right at home. Time for another award: European Club Midfielder of the Year. Xavi Hernandez take a bow.

Three pots down and one to go . Arsenal and Manchester United seem to have it fairly handy so far, unlike Liverpool and Chelsea, while any group Rangers find themselves in is going to be difficult. Group C, featuring Real Madrid, Inter and Marseille is shaping up to be a belter. Throw Wolfsburg into the mixer and all hell could break loose!

5.45pm: Denis Law presents Leo Messi with his award for European Club Forward of the Year. Nearly there - pot four ahoy! Then we can all get on with the rest of our lives.

The draw in full ...

Group A: Bayern Munich, Juventus, Bordeaux , Maccabi Haifa

Group B: Manchester United, CSKA Moscow, Besiktas, Wolfsburg

Group C: AC Milan, Real Madrid, Marseille, FC Zurich

Group D: Chelsea, Porto, Atletico Madrid, Apoel FC

Group E: Liverpool, Lyon, Fiorentina, Debreceni

Group F: Barcelona, Internazionale, Dynamo Kiev, FC Rubin Kazan

Group G: Sevilla, Rangers, VfB Stuttgart, Unirea Uriziceni

Group H: Arsenal, AZ Alkmaar, Olympiakos, Standard Liege

5.55pm: Well, Manchester United haven't got it as cushy as usual, that's for sure. Nobody wanted Wolfsburg out of Pot 4, but they've been saddled with them. Rangers probably have as good a draw as they could have hoped for. Chelsea have got a tricky enough draw, Liverpool's doesn't look too bad and Arsenal's couldn't be much easier.

6.15pm: Apologies for not providing more post-draw analysis, but some men in Red Dwarf T-shirts shut down our tools, which meant I was unable to add to this report. Thanks for your time asnd your emails - apologies for not getting through them all.