UEFA plan an August review for a fan return to the Champions League, Europa League and domestic seasons. The European football body held a video conference on Thursday to discuss these plans.
At present there are measures in place, with regular testing been conducted. These tests are for both players and staff members as the various domestic leagues are set to be completed for the season. New guidelines will be coming in to place next season, which may mean teams who will be competing in European competitions will have to forfeit games if they fail to inform UEFA of travel restrictions.
No guidance has been released in terms of when teams will be allowed have fans in stadiums. However, UEFA have discussed this and this will be addressed in a further meeting later this month. UEFA released a statement saying, “UEFA and the General Secretaries of the 55 National Associations met in a video conference today to discuss topics related to the restart of UEFA competitions in the light of the current situation; most notably those for clubs, national teams and youth”.
It continued, “It was stressed that, in order to comply with travel restrictions and quarantine requirements issued by authorities, some matches may need to be moved to neutral countries/stadia and the detailed scenarios were presented”. Hubs have also been put in place to allow neutral games to take place in Poland, Greece, Cyprus and Hungary which FIFA thanked for their cooperation. “UEFA is constantly monitoring the evolution of the regulatory landscape in the different countries and a review of the situation is planned around mid August to see if the current decision of playing all matches behind closed doors can be at least partially changed.”
Champions League quarter finals will be played on August 12th four nights in a row. These will be single knockout games and will be played in Benfica and Lisbon. The semi-finals will also take place on the 16/17th of August, with the final pencilled for the 23rd. Meanwhile, the Europa League will take place in Germany from the quarter-finals onwards.
