Big Rumour going round that the champions league draw was leaked. This was posted on the Liverpool Echo this morning this morning before the draw.

http://forums.liverpoolecho.co.uk...s=0&postorder=asc&start=0

A load of bollocks imo.  Someone happened to successfully predict the draw, and as bookies weren't taking bets on it came to this conclusion.  People have successfully predicted draws in tournaments before and they will do again.  It doesn't mean they're rigged.
_________________
Forza Juve!!!

Yep just me being a sensationalist  

It is a remarkable coincidence, though -

Some time before the draw, predictions of the ties emerge. Bookies, it is alleged, stop taking bets (not, it appears, that many of them were taking them in the first place)

When the draw is made, the predictions (the 'leak') prove to be100% correct down to which side has home advantage in the first tie.

Given the array of half-baked conspiracy theories which have only a passing acquaintance with coincidence, it's no wonder that people smell a rodent of some description, rightly or wrongly...

i posted thie above link in the Roma thread earlier. Call me naive but I think there's definitely something in this. It's not just the fact that the guy incidently provides the correct predictions, but it's compounded by him being so confident with his 'predictions' that he alleges that the draw has been leaked a good couple of hours before it's supposedly taken place live.

I have no doubts that it's rigged.  I mean, how many people are going to watch a final between Shalke and Fenerbache?

I didn’t know that the guy had posted which teams would be playing the home leg first etc! I thought he had just posted the pairings, but to actually then go onto correctly post which team plays the home leg first! Hmmm.  

They’ll have to be a little more careful next year…

Giancarlo wrote:

I have no doubts that it's rigged.  I mean, how many people are going to watch a final between Shalke and Fenerbache?

True - but in that case you'd rig the draw so that the pair met in the quarter finals to completely destroy that possibility...

If it has been rigged, I can't see for the life of me quite what they were trying to achieve with the draw...

Surely Abramovich could have worked it out in little better for his boys… So far, so good: Olympiacos in the second round, Fenerbahce in the quarters. He should have ensured a meeting with Schalke /Roma in the semis (no disrespect to Roma), But then, that could be too obvious, especially given the recent word-of-mouth leakage.

In all honesty though, I don’t think it’s been ‘rigged’, it just seems extremely suspicious.

I suppose the following possibilities arise:

1. Remove 1 English team before semis
2. Give Barca a (theoretically) easy passage into the semi
3. Have a good TV game - Roma seeking revenge for last year.
4. Good result for UEFA whoever wins (3)
5. Give Chelsea a (theoretically) easy passage into the semis
6. If (5) comes off, remove one more English team, but...
7. Have guaranteed English presence (good for TV figures) in the final.

You could also add the thrills and spills of a Barca vs Man Utd semi (no offence intended, Roma fans - if I were a Man Utd fan I'd be a little worried by the tie).

Without being rude, I can't help wondering whether the cry of 'rigging it's a disgrace ' would have rung so loud from Merseyside had Liverpool drawn Schalke or if the bloke complaining had been allowed to place his bet at William Hill. In all of this, no-one seems to be noting that the complainant, rather than going to the press with his scoop about the rigging instead went to his local betting shop to try and pull one over on the bookies and only moaned when told that he couldn't do so...

Perhaps I'm just getting cynical...

The draw is rigged from the start anyway.

"Oh wait, you can't be in the same group as them because there are already two English teams playing their first game on a Wednesday night".

"Every team must be seeded. We cannot have a group with Barca, Milan and ManYoo, it'd be a threat to the establishment".

How much does a visa cost to go and see the final?