UEFA has NO PLANS to discuss domestic leagues today.
On Friday morning UEFA announced the suspension of this week’s Champions League and Europa League matches with a video conference already scheduled for today to discuss the on going situation.
By lunchtime on Friday English football was suspended until April 3 with the Scottish game mothballed until further notice.
From that moment on there has been fierce debate about what to do with the current season into the final quarter.
As ever vested interests are to the fore. With a 13 point lead Celtic would be champions under most proposals other than ‘null and void’ which would leave the SPFL and clubs wide open to legal action for 30 rounds of effectively fantasy football.
UEFA are expected to delay or cancel Euro 2020 at today’s meeting but other than free up a month that fixtures could be scheduled in there will be no direct impact on domestic football.
Next season’s Champions League and Europa League qualifiers begin on June 23 and 25 with the draws scheduled for June 9.
Giving a run-down on today’s UEFA conference call the BBC website explains:
What about the domestic leagues?
This meeting is nothing to do with them. But it is only when the outcome is known that the leagues can come up with a plan for their own competitions. The 20 Premier League clubs are due to meet on Thursday.
Is this going to sort the mess out?
Unfortunately not. Firstly, no-one can be entirely sure when the coronavirus crisis will be over. Secondly, decisions taken by governments override any football body. Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands are in lockdown. Citizens are only allowed out for essential reasons. Under these circumstances, playing football is impossible and no-one knows for certain when the situation will change. The desire of the leagues is to finish the season. The desire of Uefa is to complete its competitions. If they could restart at the beginning of June, that scenario may well be possible. But what happens if there is no immediate prospect of restrictions being lifted in June? Then serious decisions might need to be made about scrapping the season and starting again in August.
Once some sort of decisions has been made on Euro 2020 and this season’s UEFA club competitions the national associations will then decide on their way forward with no clarity on when the impact of Coronavirus will start to lessen.
