The coronavirus pandemic has taken its toll on the entirety of the sporting world, and this year’s EURO 2020 competition was no different. A postponement until 2021 was made to allow domestic leagues and competitions to see out their respective seasons.
In a parallel universe, we’d be heading towards the end of our favourite clubs domestic season with the champions league final just around the corner. As the summer approached, BBQ’s lit, the beer is flowing and European International football was supposed to give us a start to the new decade a positive start, but this is life and is always unexpected and in the meantime, we have the Belarusian Cup games, where Bate Borivos at -110 plays against the favorite Slavia Mozyr the favorite at -120 on Bovada’s odds board we recommend to be ready and read their review before placing some action.
In reality, a worldwide pandemic has caused the European championships to postpone their scheduled competition until the summer of 2021.
On March 17th 2020, UEFA postponed their 2020 UEFA Euro competition for exactly one year as a preventive measure against COVID-19. The international championship is now scheduled to be held between June 11th and July 11th, 2021. The European governing body of football also announced on March 13th the suspension of the Champions League and Europa League matches.
Re-scheduling shake-up
The Union of European Football Association (UEFA) has begun talks in regards to altering the multi-country format for next year’s re-scheduled European championships with concerns that a lot of the cities hosting will no longer want to take part in such a huge gathering inside their country.
The FA have no problems and remain adamant on hosting at Wembley stadium for the Euro competition, The Spanish and Italian FA’s; not so much. Both have expressed doubt in honouring their commitments to host games in both Rome and Bilbao, with the large death tolls and the economic suffering they’ve experienced from the coronavirus pandemic.
Adding to that, 10 stadiums that were selected to host games by UEFA have existing bookings for next summer that could impact their availability.
Unlike their counterparts, The English FA have remained calm and committed to the rescheduling. Wembley has been booked to host all three of England’s group stage fixtures, as well as the semi-finals and the final.
The venues in and around the UK have had to cancel some large summer concerts due to the scheduling clash. Glasgow, Dublin and Amsterdam are all in the same situation.
Once committed to the multi-country format is slowly becoming an unrealistic venture, their stance on the situation is changing.
Aleksander Ceferin (the UEFA president) was never too keen on the idea in the first place and now given the potential problems that COVID-19 could cause in the future, should see a scaling down from multiple countries hosting the Euro.
‘Euro 2020 is foreseen to take place between June 11 and July 11, 2021, intending to have the same match schedule and the same host cities,’ a UEFA spokesman told the BBC.
‘However, at this stage, the match schedule has not been officially confirmed. UEFA is in contact with all 12 host cities and further announcements will be made.’ He added.
Other cities could be arranged to host
UEFA isn’t out of options if some countries were to back out of hosting if this were the case then UEFA could call upon multiple various locations, Russia is one of those mentioned.
“If one of the host cities decides to step aside, there are not many options on the table,” Sorokin said. “There will be either a new host city or there will be the redistribution among the previously confirmed venues.” Alexei Sorokin – head of local organizing committee of Russia – told Russian news.
“The second option is less labour-consuming,” he said. “The redistribution of matches is the priority of UEFA.”
“Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko stated earlier that Russia was ready to discuss its possible support regarding this issue,” Sorokin said. “We should consider returning to this issue by next year.”