UEFA has made a move towards clearing the decks for the return of club football by announcing on Wednesday that all international matches that had been pushed back to June have now been postponed until further notice.
“This includes the play-off matches for UEFA EURO 2020 and qualifying matches for UEFA Women’s EURO 2021,” said European football’s governing body in a statement. “All other UEFA competition matches, including the centralised international friendly matches, remain postponed until further notice.”
The decision followed a videoconference with Europe’s 55 member federations as part of discussions on how to adapt the fixture calendar in the face of the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
The play-off semifinals and finals that are supposed to decide the last four qualifying berths for the next European Championship were initially postponed at the end of March and pencilled in provisionally for June.
That was “subject to a review of the situation” amid uncertainty over how the pandemic will develop and whether many European countries currently in lockdown will be able to return to some kind of normalcy.
