Why Real Madrid are banned from playing Liverpool at Anfield

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FT Desk

Over the last couple of seasons, we've become accustomed to seeing Real Madrid travel to Merseyside to face Liverpool at Anfield.

In both the 2024/25 and 2025/26 campaigns, Liverpool have been drawn at home against Los Blancos in the Champions League league phase.

However, we won't see that fixture in England this season due to a UEFA rule which prevents the same match taking place three years in a row in the same location.

Paragraph 16.03 of last season's Champions League regulations read: "UEFA administration may determine alternative conditions for the draw in accordance with the principles set by the Club Competitions Committee and may adapt any of the conditions of the draw to avoid deadlock situations and/or take into account any relevant constraints in light of decisions taken by the UEFA Executive Committee.

"The UEFA Club Competitions Committee has determined an additional condition that may be applicable to the UEFA Champions League draw for the 2026/27 season, deciding that any individual fixture between the same two teams may not be repeated in the same competition with the same home team for three consecutive seasons.

"This means that if any teams that already played against each other in the league phase of the UEFA Champions League in the 2024/25 season are again drawn against each other, with the same home team, in the league phase of the UEFA Champions League in this 2025/26 season, those teams will not be able to be drawn against each other with the same home team in the 2026/27 season."

It should be noted that the Reds can still play Madrid in the league phase as long as it is drawn for the Santiago Bernabeu.

Liverpool won both of the fixtures in 2024 and 2025 - 2-0 after goals from Alexis Mac Allister and Cody Gakpo two years ago, and 1-0 after a solitary strike from Mac Allister again last season.

The Reds qualified for this season's Champions League after finishing fifth in the Premier League last season.

Following a failed defence of the Premier League title, manager Arne Slot was sacked and replaced with Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola.