Football: due to coronavirus epidemic, UEFA postpones Euro 2020

Text by: Farid Achache Follow

This Tuesday, March 17, UEFA announced to the Leagues and the clubs its decision to postpone the Euro to the summer of 2021 and to temporarily suspend the Champions League and the Europa League.

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Meeting on Tuesday morning by videoconference with the Leagues and the clubs, the UEFA leaders confirmed their intention to postpone the Euro to 2021. The Euro 2020, scheduled from 12 June to 12 July 2020 in twelve European countries, will be shifted to the summer of 2021. Meanwhile, the Champions League and the Europa League are also suspended. The two European competitions should resume as soon as the situation allows.

European football will therefore not have withstood the wave of the coronavirus which is raging on the European continent. Euro 2020 was to be held between June 12 and July 12, across twelve European cities. Ironically, the launch was to take place in Rome, Italy, currently under quarantine. For the first time since its creation in 1960, the competition will not take place. " For now, the priority is to save lives, " said Roberto Mancini, the Italian coach, on the Rai. In a press release dated Monday March 16, the German Football League (DFL) was " firmly committed to postponing Euro 2020 ". Most of the domestic championships are stopped in Europe.

" Best solution "

" Postponing the Euro for a year seems to me by far the best solution, even the only one ," Jacques Lambert, head of the organizing committee for Euro 2016, told AFP. The situation is extremely changing and will remain so, UEFA would not be in a better situation in three weeks or a month to decide. "

With this proposed postponement, UEFA rules out the option of a Euro behind closed doors or a cancellation, which would have deprived the European confederation of a significant windfall of television rights. In 2016, the Euro had generated more than a billion euros in TV rights, according to the European confederation, and a total turnover of 1.92 billion euros. For comparison, the postponement of the Euro would cost around 300 million euros, according to a marketing specialist interviewed by AFP.

A postponement puzzle

By pushing back the Euro, UEFA also offers an additional chance for the national championships to go through. The postponement to next year, desired by the major European championships, nevertheless risks leading to a puzzle in an already overloaded international calendar: the Euro risks collapsing in the summer of 2021 with the Club World Cup programmed in China by Fifa, which expects significant revenues.

To read also: Will the coronavirus sink the Euro of football?

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