London (AFP)

As a symbol of the cessation of international football: Wembley stadium, which should have hosted the final of Euro-2020 on Sunday in front of 90,000 spectators, will have to be satisfied with an accession final in the English second division, disputed in in camera due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This 16th edition of this European Nations Championship, which was postponed for one year by mid-March by UEFA, should have taken place in twelve cities in twelve countries from June 12 to July 12, with half finals and final at Wembley. But the coronavirus has been there.

If doubts hovered over the ability of three cities to host the continental competition in a year, according to UEFA, the body finally confirmed in mid-June the maintenance of the Euro in its original format.

The meetings will therefore take place from June 11 to July 11, 2021 in Amsterdam, Baku, Bilbao, Bucharest, Budapest, Copenhagen, Dublin, Glasgow, London, Munich, Rome and Saint Petersburg.

Kick-off will only be whistled in eleven months, and the thousands of kilometers between certain host cities, travel restrictions and quarantine measures due to the pandemic could impact supporters' ability to travel. .

Hope is allowed, with the resumption since May of most of the European championships, behind closed doors. But international football has been de facto stopped since November.

- Financial impact -

He will resume in Europe in September with the League of Nations, after almost ten months of stoppage. Unheard of since the end of the Second World War.

The match between Germany and Spain on September 3 will be the first shock of this competition, while the French world champions will wear their two-star jersey two days later against Sweden, after 300 days of forced break.

Club football is gradually resuming its rights this summer, with the final stages in August of the Champions League in Portugal and the Europa League in Germany, but the financial impact of the pandemic is being felt.

"I realize that we have to protect national teams because international football is for the vast majority (of federations) a matter of survival," said FIFA boss Gianni Infantino in April.

The British Football Federation thus estimates that it could lose around 335 million euros in the next four years due to the holding of matches behind closed doors, the postponement of Euro-2020 and that of the Women's Euro 2021, shifted to 2022.

On the sporting level, this forced parenthesis on the other hand had a positive impact for the English selection which would undoubtedly have had to do without two of its star players, Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford, seriously injured in January respectively in a thigh and in the back , if the Euro had taken place on the scheduled dates.

© 2020 AFP