BRUSSELS: Several media outlets, including L’Equipe, report that UEFA will announce that it will postpone EURO 2020 by a year, until 2021, so that the Champions League and Europa League may conclude instead this summer. Both competitions will be suspended until further notice.
FIFA will have to approve the measure, and there will be further ramifications throughout the sport. Currently, the new Club World Cup was being planned for summer 2021.
In the interim, UEFA announced Friday that all Champions League and Europa League matches scheduled to be played next week have been postponed. The move comes after two of next week’s four scheduled Champions League last 16, second legs – between Manchester City and Real Madrid, and between Juventus and Lyon – had already been called off on Thursday.
“Further decisions on when these matches take place will be communicated in due course,” UEFA said in a statement.
Several games have already been postponed, and domestic competitions have been suspended as well in some countries.
The global pandemic has affected some footballers already, particularly those in Serie A. Italy has been the hardest hit country in Europe so far.
The chances of Barcelona-Napoli being postponed were already high as matches involving Italian and Spanish clubs were postponed this week. LaLiga also already announced a halt to all games for at least two weeks.
The French football season has been suspended “until further notice” because of the coronavirus outbreak, a source close to the LFP, which runs the elite Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, told AFP on Friday.
The source said that the league had taken a “unanimous” decision to stop playing with immediate effect following an emergency meeting on Friday, having previously said games would continue to be played behind closed doors until mid-April.
The move means France follows other leading European leagues in closing down the season, with all sport in Italy stopped until early April and the next two rounds of matches in La Liga in Spain postponed.
In addition, the Dutch and Swiss domestic leagues have been put on hold until the end of the month, while Portugal has announced its top two divisions will be suspended “indefinitely”.
