UEFA have announced plans to release a feature-length DVD containing all the best bits of this season’s Champions League draws.
A press release asserts that the DVD, expected to become a best-seller across Europe, will ‘blend all of the most dramatic moments of this season’s draws into one six-hour film that will be a must watch for all football fans’.
UEFA have come in for criticism in the past for the length of their draws. By the time the ties for last season’s quarter-finals were announced, many of the club’s representatives had been forced to leave to make it in time for weekend fixtures, and some of the clubs involved had disbanded entirely.
But this year, rather than curtail the ceremonies, UEFA opted to extend the festivities, with the average draw taking in excess of a week to complete.
“All football fans love a good draw, and the longer the better,” UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino told FourFourTwo.
“I think I speak for everyone when I say there’s nothing the football-loving public enjoy more than having to secrete a live stream on their work computer for the best part of an hour, regularly minimising it when someone walks past, just to find out which of two variables arise.”
This morning’s semi-final draw was fleshed out with half-hour presentations charting each club’s route from formation in the 19th century to this point in the competition, a lengthy piece on the history of host city Lisbon, and Luis Figo explaining exactly what he had for breakfast and why.
It remains to be seen which parts of the ceremony make it into the DVD entitled ‘The Champions League Draw: Many Hours of Your Life You’ll Never Get Back’, but the blurb on the back of the case promises ‘countless shots of ageing ex-pros you can’t quite place looking uncomfortably hot in suits’ and ‘just so many of those montages of goals over dramatic music’.
