Lausanne (AFP)

UEFA on Thursday called on all European federations to harmonize the dates of the summer transfer window with a closing on October 5, also announcing a relaxation of the rules of financial fair play to respond to the coronavirus crisis.

Meeting on Wednesday and Thursday by videoconference, the UEFA executive committee "called on its member federations to adopt a closing date for the next harmonized summer transfer window, this date being set for 5 October", the body said in a communicated.

The deadline for registering players for the group stage of European club competitions for the 2020-2021 season, which will start on 20 October, has been set for 6 October, said UEFA.

The summer transfer window was pushed back to Europe due to the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the championships to end in March. Competitions, including the national championships, have resumed in most countries, including Germany, Italy, Spain, England and Portugal, but not in France or the Netherlands.

Last week, Fifa announced that it was modifying its transfer window rules to take into account the long interruption of competitions linked to the coronavirus, conditionally allowing the summer window to exceptionally overlap the 2019-2020 championship ends rescheduled during summer.

The summer market is supposed to last 12 weeks, according to FIFA regulations, this international transfer window could therefore open in early July and close in early October if the national federations follow the recommendation of UEFA.

Fifa's decision was made to allow clubs still involved in their respective championships during the summer to register new players at the same time. But these players will only be able to be aligned in official matches for the matches of the 2020-2021 season, not for those of the season to finish.

UEFA announced on Wednesday that the 2019-2020 editions of the Champions League and the Europa League, which were interrupted in March at the round of 16, would each end in a final tournament in Portugal and Portugal respectively in August Germany.

- "Flexibility" -

The body also announced on Thursday a temporary relaxation of the rules of financial fair play (FPF), which prohibits a club engaged in European competition to spend more than what it earns and tightly regulates capital injections on the part of the owners.

These "temporary emergency measures" were adopted to "take into account the negative impact of Covid-19 on club finances," said UEFA.

The aim is to give clubs "flexibility" while ensuring that they continue to "meet their transfer and salary obligations on time" and to offer them "more time to quantify and explain unanticipated revenue losses. "

The provisional measures notably provide for an evaluation of the 2020 financial year postponed by one season: the monitoring period evaluated during the 2020-2021 season is shortened, covering only the financial years ending in 2018 and 2019.

In addition, "the 2020 and 2021 financial years are assessed as if they were a single period", adds UEFA, which should allow losses to be spread over two financial years.

These softening of the FPF rules do not apply to Olympique de Marseille, whose dossier was sent at the beginning of March to the club financial control judgment body (ICFC).

The club faces sanctions for not respecting an agreement concluded in 2016 and which provided for it to return to financial balance in 2019.

© 2020 AFP