Organizers of the revamped Champions League draw, now powered by a software program program, assured Wednesday that will probably be swift and safe from hackers.
UEFA has enlisted a specialist tech agency to generate match pairings for Thursday’s draw, debuting the brand new 36-team, single-league format that replaces the normal group stage, which was beforehand decided by manually drawing balls from bowls.
“We have taken all steps we possibly can to make it as safe and secure as possible,” said David Gill of AE Live, the English software firm that designed the draw process for a gala ceremony in Monaco. “This shouldn’t be new for us.”
Gill stated the agency additionally labored with FIFA and confronted a “supply chain attack” after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
After the invasion began in February 2022, FIFA and UEFA eliminated Russia from qualifying playoffs for the 2022 World Cup forward of the finals match draw ceremony in Qatar that April.
UEFA Deputy General Secretary Giorgio Marchetti stated at an eve-of-draw briefing that the group had full confidence in AE Live, which has not shared its software program code with UEFA.
Asked about conspiracy theories concerning the integrity of UEFA competitors attracts, Marchetti acknowledged, “Many people didn’t trust us in the past.”
“They thought the ball was hot or cold or God only knows which systems to manipulate the balls,” Marchetti stated. “People can trust us.”
After 21 years of the normal Champions League format – 32 groups every enjoying six video games in a bunch to advance to the spherical of 16 – the brand new system has 36 groups every enjoying eight totally different opponents. They are ranked in single-league standings in January to determine who advances to the knockout section.
This format created so many permutations of doable pairings that an old-style guide draw would have taken a number of hours as a substitute of about half-hour.
Instead, every ball shall be picked from one among 4 bowls of seeded groups earlier than the software program decides its eight opponents, that are shortly displayed.
“The response of the system will happen in a few seconds, so there is no possibility for anyone to intervene,” Marchetti stated.
Last December, unexplained moaning noises disrupted the draw ceremony for the boys’s European Championship.
The interruption was clearly heard for a number of minutes on the published from a live performance corridor in Hamburg, Germany.
A British prankster claimed credit score for the stunt.
Source: www.dailysabah.com