The Champions League Last 16 draw will be held again this afternoon following an administrative error by UEFA during the initial ceremony, the European governing body of football announced.

During Monday’s draw, Manchester United were erroneously drawn to face Villarreal as the two sides had already faced each other in the group stage.

Subsequently, Manchester City were paired with the Spanish La Liga side. However, the name of Manchester United was not put back in the pot for the subsequent pairing which could have seen them face another Spanish side Atletico Madrid.

Atletico Madrid and Villarreal both protested with UEFA and asked for the draw to be redone and the European governing body decided that the draw will now be repeated at 4pm Malta time.

“Following a technical problem with the software of an external service provider that instructs the officials as to which teams are eligible to play each other, a material error occurred in the draw for the UEFA Champions League Round of 16.

“As a result of this, the draw has been declared void and will be entirely redone at 1500 CET (2pm UK time).”

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