UEFA on Wednesday made a move toward clearing the decks for the return of club soccer by announcing that all international matches that had been pushed back to June have now been postponed until further notice.
“This includes the playoff matches for UEFA Euro 2020 and qualifying matches for UEFA Women’s Euro 2021,” European soccer’s governing body said in a statement.
“All other UEFA competition matches, including the centralized international friendly matches, remain postponed until further notice,” it said.
The decision followed a teleconference with Europe’s 55 member federations as part of discussions on how to adapt the fixture calendar in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The playoff semi-finals and finals that are supposed to decide the last four qualifying berths for the next European Football Championship were initially postponed at the end of last month and penciled in provisionally for June.
That was “subject to a review of the situation” amid uncertainty over how the pandemic would develop and whether many European countries in lockdown would be able to return to some kind of normality.
Friendlies that will now not go ahead include England’s matches in Austria and at home to Romania in early June.
However, European soccer’s governing body has also stated a determination to finish all domestic and club competitions by June 30.
While that looks ambitious, clearing the international fixtures from the same month does buy some more time as it aims to complete the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League competitions, as well as domestic leagues.
“The federations agreed to hand over the international window in June to the leagues so they can complete domestic competitions. Finishing the current season is a priority for UEFA as much as it is for the federations,” the Royal Spanish Football Federation said in a statement.
Carrying the season on beyond June 30 runs the risk of clubs losing their out-of-contract players before matches have been completed, unless a solution can be found.
“There is a very strong case to be made that it should be in everybody’s interests to as much as possible extend those,” International Federation of Professional Footballers secretary-general Jonas Baer-Hoffmann said on Tuesday in a conference call when asked about the issue of expiring player contracts.
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin told Italian newspaper La Repubblica over the weekend that soccer “could start again in mid-May, in June or even late June,” but that any time after that and “the season will probably be lost.”
However, the Spanish federation also revealed that UEFA has laid the ground for playing club soccer in July and August should a June return not prove feasible.
The effects of the pandemic on Europe have already forced UEFA to delay Euro 2020 by 12 months, while the Women’s Euro 2021 has also been postponed.
The Spanish body and the Danish Football Association said that agreement has been reached for the Women’s Euro 2021, which is to be hosted by England, to be played in 2022.
The next men’s under-21 Euro would also go ahead in 2022, they said.
UEFA also said that the men’s and women’s under-17 and under-19 European Championships — scheduled for next month and July respectively — were postponed until further notice.
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