Geneva (AFP)

The European Championship of football of the mountain villages which was programmed at the end of August in Gspon, in Switzerland, is finally postponed to 2021, one learned Sunday with the organizers.

While the Euro for professional football had not withstood the Covid-19 pandemic and had to be postponed to 2021, the Euro for mountain villages had first chosen to simply postpone its initial edition for a few weeks in June.

But the organizers finally had to give up, due to the refusal to host the event pronounced by the municipal council of Staldenried, commune on which Gspon depends and therefore the management of its stadium, one of the highest in Europe, to 1.899 m of altitude.

The members of the local council of Staldenried "did not act as true supporters of our idea of ​​an authentic mountain football", regret the organizers in a press release.

The initiator of the event, Fabian Furrer, a child from the village of Gspon and publisher of sports magazines, regrets that "concerns about the current situation" and the epidemic prompted this decision.

He therefore decided to postpone the event to the summer of 2021.

Accessible only by cable car and with snow-covered terrain until May, Gspon was to host the tournament for the second time since 2008.

The second survey in 2012 took place in Austria at Kleinarl, at an altitude of 1,014 m. The French winter sports resort of Morzine, in Haute-Savoie, hosted the third edition in 2016.

© 2020 AFP