Lisbon (AFP)
"We will have spectators in the stadiums": Euro-2020, postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus, should be able to take place with the public and without changing the format exploded in twelve cities, said the UEFA president on Thursday Aleksander Ceferin in an interview with AFP.
“Maybe what looks weird to us today won't be in December or January. We still have time to think about it. For now, we are keeping the same format and we hope and think we will have spectators in the stadiums ", declared the Slovenian leader during this interview, carried out on the sidelines of the final tournament of the Champions League in Lisbon.
Euro-2020 should have taken place in June and July this year but the coronavirus pandemic in March forced UEFA, the governing body of European football, to postpone its scheduled competition in twelve cities of twelve countries of the Old Continent (June 11-July 11, 2021).
This postponement allowed the transition to club competitions, Champions League, Europa League and main national championships, to take advantage of the dates released to go to their end behind closed doors at the end of spring and during the summer, after several weeks of paralysis of European football in the face of the spread of the disease.
Aleksander Ceferin assured not to ask himself the question of maintaining a health camera next summer at the Euro, while apart from France, where a maximum level of 5,000 people is allowed in the stadiums (except exemption ), most of the major European football countries are currently organizing meetings without an audience.
"I don't even want to talk about the absence of spectators, or a limited number of spectators," replied the UEFA boss.
"I want to stay optimistic, send positive energy, and I really think, on a personal level, that we will have spectators. If that was not possible, we would talk about it then," he added. "I sincerely believe that things will normalize before next year, well before."
© 2020 AFP