English clubs in top seeds

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English clubs Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United are all among the eight top seeds for Thursday's UEFA Champions League draw for the group stage.

The English giants are joined by two from Spain - Barcelona and Real Madrid - plus title holders AC Milan and their city rivals Inter.

FOLLOW THE UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE DRAW LIVE ON SKY SPORTS.COM FROM 4.30 PM

Celtic are among the third seeds in the draw with Rangers among the fourth seeds.

Before the names are drawn out of the hat UEFA are due to announce sweeping changes to the format of the competition.

UEFA president Michel Platini is expected to confirm the details of his plans to open up the Champions League to wider competition, specifically by giving domestic cup winners an opportunity to make it into the 32-team group phase.

It is understood that his plans would have 16 cup winners from Europe's leading countries in a qualifying competition for four places in the group stage of the Champions League. This qualifying event would be run in parallel to a qualifying competition based on domestic league positions for 12 other places, to join the 16 teams who qualify automatically.

Discussion

UEFA general secretary David Taylor said: "The competition is the ultimate stage for European club football and we are looking at the access list arrangements to see if we can improve the qualifying routes which might allow the opportunity to broaden the geographic spread of this competition.

"We are having a big discussion about this at the Professional Football strategy board on Friday. The idea is that winners qualify for competitions and that's a good principle."

Taylor also made it clear that only cup winners would be allowed to enter the Champions League qualifying process - currently runners-up can go into the UEFA Cup if the winners have already qualified through their league.

Under the proposals, if as happened in England last season Chelsea were FA Cup winners and had already qualified automatically then the fourth-placed side - in this case Arsenal - would have to try to qualify through the 'cup' route.

Platini's proposals would also see changes in Scotland with the champions and cup winners given qualifying places rather than the top two in the league.