How UEFA expect PSG & Lyon to finish Champions League campaigns & Euro 2020 may get pulled from Copenhagen

How UEFA expect PSG & Lyon to finish Champions League campaigns

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has given a fresh update on the expectations to complete the 2019-20 Champions League season.

When football stopped due to the Covid-19 pandemic, four UCL last-16 ties were yet to complete. Those games are:

Juventus – Olympique Lyon
Manchester City – Real Madrid
Bayern Munich – Chelsea
FC Barcelona – Naples

Meanwhile, the following teams have already qualified for the Champions League quarter-finals: PSG, Atletico Madrid, Atalanta and RB Leipzig.

At the same time, when football stopped in France, another issue cropped up.

The Ligue 1 season was forced to end on the orders of the government, who announced that no public gathering will be allowed until September.

That decision left an open-ended question for PSG and Lyon: how could they play any more home matches in the 2019-20 Champions League?

On the scheduling issue, we’ve previously reported on how UEFA plan to complete the 2019-20 Champions League by August.

Now, as reported on Sunday in the Guardian, UEFA’s Ceferin has again confirmed this intended August end-date for the UCL.

Moreover, Ceferin has now given some guidance to PSG and Lyon on how they address the issue of playing future home games in the competition:

We have an idea but we have to wait for the executive committee of Uefa to confirm the dates. I can say that the European season will be finished, if everything is as it is now, in August.

As things look now, I’m sure that we can finish the European season and this means Uefa competition. I think the majority of leagues will finish the season. The ones who will not, it’s their decision. But they will still have to play qualifiers if they want to participate in the European Uefa competition.

Paris Saint-Germain and Lyon will have to organise [matches] in France. If this is not possible, [they] will have to organise it at a neutral ground.

If you cannot play in your country, then you have to organise it at a neutral ground. I don’t see the reason why French authorities would not allow them to organise a match without spectators, but let’s see. It’s out of my power.

 

Euro 2020 may get pulled from Copenhagen

UEFA have already confirmed that Euro 2020 will be pushed to 2021.

However, issues concerning the staging of the tournament 12-months later than scheduled are beginning to cause problems.

It’s been well documented that Copenhagen may have significant problems in staging Euro 2021 next year.

That’s because Copenhagen had agreed to host the Grand Départ of Tour de France on 2 July 2021.

Without singling out Copenhagen by name, UEFA’s Ceferin has now revealed that the capital of Denmark may not host Euro 2020 after all:

We’ve had conversations with nine cities and everything is set. With three cities, we have some issues. So we will discuss further.

In principle, we will do it in 12 cities but if not, we are ready to do it in 10, nine or eight.

 

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