Is Fernando Torres cup tied?

This morning on twitter, there seem to be conflicting reports about whether or not Chelsea's new signing, Fernando Torres, will be available to us in the knockout stages of the Champions League.  I decided to bypass the media and go straight to the UEFA regulations for this.  I'm not going to get as in depth with this as I did with the financial fair play overview, I'm just going to brush over any information relevant to the Torres situation.

As most of you know, Torres has played with Liverpool in the group stages of the Europa League.  The fact that it wasn't the Champions League, and that Liverpool seem unlikely to return to the bigger competition next year were major reasons in his decision to leave the Kop.  Article 18 is the section of the regulation dealing with player registration.  According to the article, teams can register players on two lists.  List A is due before the beginning of the group stages of the competition.  These are the players who are eligible to compete for your club at any point in the group stages.  

After the group stage, the club may submit a second list (list B) to Uefa that includes three additional players.  These three players will be eligible for the knockout rounds of the competition, providing they meet the criteria.  Since David Luiz has participated in the group stages of the same competition, he will not be eligible to play for Chelsea.  Here's the exact section of the rule dealing with Torres:

 

 One player from  the above quota of three who has played UEFA club 

competition matches for another competing club in the current season may 

exceptionally be registered, provided that the player has not been fielded: 

− in the same competition for another club; or 

− for another club that is currently in the same competition. 

Furthermore, if the player’s new club is playing in the UEFA Europa League, 

his former club must not have played in the UEFA Europa League at any 

point in the current season

It seems pretty clear to me that this perfectly describes Fernando.  He's played for Liverpool in a UEFA competition this year, but not in a competition that Chelsea are or have competed in.  Chelsea will not be dropping down to the Europa League at this point, so that isn't a worry.  According to the rule, we have the right to add Torres to our Champions League roster which is due this afternoon.  So while we won't see David Luiz in the Champions League this year, look forward to Didier Drogba and Torres terrorizing the defenses of the top teams in Europe.