Europe’s football-governing body, UEFA has announced the postponement of its flagship events for clubs, the Champions League and Europa League until further notice.
It is however believed that UEFA is determined to play the games – once the domestic seasons are completed.
The understanding is that the matches will not be played behind closed doors, as has been confirmed by UEFA president, Alexander Ceferin.
International fixtures scheduled for June are now off, including play-off matches for Euro 2020, which has been moved to 2021.
UEFA released a full statement after a video conference with 55 national associations and these were the major resolutions:
The deadlines related to all 2020/21 UEFA club competitions are postponed until further notice, in particular as regards the admission process and the registration of players. UEFA will set new deadlines in due course.
Following the video conference meeting with the general secretaries of all 55 UEFA member associations and recommendations made by the working groups created on 17 March, the UEFA Executive Committee took a series of decisions, as follows:
• All national team matches for men and women due to be played in June 2020 are postponed until further notice. This includes the play-off matches for UEFA EURO 2020 and qualifying matches for UEFA Women’s EURO 2021.
• All other UEFA competition matches, including the centralised international friendly matches, remain postponed until further notice.
• Youth national team competitions:
(i) the UEFA European Under-17 Championship final tournament scheduled for May 2020 is cancelled;
(ii) the UEFA European Women’s Under-19 Championship final tournament scheduled for July 2020 is cancelled;
(iii) the UEFA European Women’s Under-17 Championship final tournament scheduled for May 2020 is postponed until further notice (as it is a qualifying competition for the FIFA U 17 Women’s World Cup);
(iv) the UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournament scheduled for July 2020 is postponed until further notice (as it is a qualifying competition for the FIFA U-20 World Cup).
• The UEFA Futsal Champions League finals scheduled for April 2020 are postponed until further notice.
• The deadlines related to all 2020/21 UEFA club competitions are postponed until further notice, in particular as regards the admission process and the registration of players. UEFA will set new deadlines in due course.
On club licensing and financial fair play matters:
The Executive Committee reiterated its full commitment to club licensing and financial fair play and agreed that the current exceptional circumstances necessitate some specific interventions to facilitate the work of member associations and clubs.
It supports the proposal to give member associations more time to complete the club licensing process, until the admission process for next season’s UEFA club competitions has been redefined.
As a result of the increasing uncertainty generated by the ongoing extraordinary events, the Executive Committee also decided to suspend the club licensing provisions that relate to the preparation and assessment of clubs’ future financial information.
This decision applies exclusively for participation in the 2020/21 UEFA club competitions.
