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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Omar Garrick

Manchester United's Champions League farce begs key question of shambolic UEFA

I've watched a lot of football draws in my time but I've never watched one quite as calamitous as Monday morning's last 16 Champions League draw.

Like every other Manchester United fan, all I could think about as they paraded random ex-footballers onto the stage was who we'd be drawn against in the next round.

When our United On My Mind team were predicting who we'd like to be drawn against prior to the draw, I confidently said I'd like to be drawn against Paris Saint-Germain because of the countless sub-plots involved in such a tie.

Cristiano Ronaldo vs Lionel Messi, Mauricio Pochettino vs his potential next employers, Ralf Rangnick copying Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and convincing the Old Trafford hierarchy to hire him permanently after a win over PSG - the word 'narrative' was made for games like this.

I was feeling pretty confident when I said I'd like to face PSG, but as soon as the draw took place I felt a bit daft. Well, not quite as daft as UEFA will have been feeling.

When Villarreal's name was plucked out of the hat/weirdly extravagant fish bowls, everyone knew that United couldn't face them as they'd qualified from the same group. However, to everyone's shock, United's name appeared. That was just the start of the drama.

After the ticket with Atletico Madrid's name on was held aloft, it soon became apparent that United's ball had not been included in the draw.

As each name appeared from the bowl with United still left unpicked, it was clear what was going to happen. Obviously it's PSG. Why wouldn't it be?

Suddenly I wasn't feeling so confident.

It didn't take long for the furore around the mix up to emerge, with reports of clubs lodging complaints to UEFA surfacing before they'd even had a chance to remove the comically-sized fish bowls from the table. The whole thing was a complete mess and soon UEFA were forced to announce that the draw would take place again later in the afternoon.

This isn't the first time a UEFA mistake has impacted United. Recently, there was the Aaron Wan-Bissaka challenge against Young Boys that originally saw him handed a two-match ban when it evidently should have been a one-match ban. This decision was eventually overturned.

There was the ludicrous red card given to Nani in the Champions League tie against Real Madrid in 2013 which completely changed the game and ultimately led to United being dumped out of the competition.

It's worth noting that United have also benefitted from some controversial decisions made by the people who are meant to represent European football's governing body. The penalty awarded against PSG following a VAR review left many perplexed at the decision, as UEFA took one step closer to replacing the Champions League anthem with the Benny Hill theme tune.

There isn't much that UEFA do that doesn't involve controversy. The Champions League draw should've been a simple thing to get right but again they messed it up!

Some serious issues need to be addressed but it remains to be seen who will ever address them.

What did you think of the Champions League draw? Follow our United On My Mind writer Omar Garrick on Twitter to get involved in the discussion and give us your thoughts on the matter in the comments section below.

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