The European Championship 2020 (EURO 2020), the second important international soccer behind the World Cup, will be postponed until 2021 due to the impacts of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), said the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).
The European football’s governing body UEFA made the decision after an hours-lasting online conference with national associations, clubs, and players on March 17.
The final round of the EURO 2020 is projected to take place in 12 nations from June 12 to July 12, with the participation of 24 football teams. The hosted countries are the UK, Germany, Azerbaijan, Russia, Italy, Denmark, Romania, the Netherlands, Ireland, Spain, Hungary, and Scotland. This is the first time the EURO has not been held in a single nation.
The UEFA said that the postponement would facilitate the organization of all domestic football competitions such as the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1, among others, as well as the completion of the UEFA Champions League, Europa League this year.
Currently, all of these tournaments have been postponed until April. However, if the COVID-19 pandemic is not stamped out, many competitions, namely the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1, UEFA Champions League, and Europa League will continue being suspended and be hard to end before the summer.
Despite the postponement until 2021, the EURO 2020 will still be known as UEFA EURO 2020, the union said on its Twitter on March 20. After the statement, some citizens criticized the UEFTA for its hasty decision.
However, the union had to apologize for the wrong information, affirming that the previous message was sent in error. It added that it has yet to decide on the name.
As the initial plan, the EURO 2020 would take place from June 12 to July 12, 2020./.