UEFA confirms Champions League to resume on August 7
Sports
By
Waweru Titus
| Jun 17, 2020
UEFA has confirmed that the 2019/20 Champions League (UCL) will be completed with an eight-team tournament hosted in Lisbon, Portugal.
UCL quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final will be played as a straight knockout tournament in Lisbon, August. All these ties will be single-leg fixtures.
The quarter-finals, semi-finals and final will be split between Benfica's Estádio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica and Sporting CP's Estádio José Alvalade.
Quarter-final ties will take place from August 12-16, with last-four games contested on August 18-19, and the final to be held at Benfica's Estadio da Luz on August 23.
The outstanding last-16 games will be completed on August 7-8, though a decision has not yet been taken on whether they will be played at the home stadiums without fans or in Portugal.
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The Estádio do Dragão in Porto and the Estádio D. Afonso Henriques in Guimarães will host the four outstanding round of 16 second legs if required.
"I am delighted that we are able to resume almost all of our competitions. I am confident that we will not have to endure the fans' absence for long and that they will be allowed into stadiums sooner rather than later. The football community has worked together and shown tremendous unity during this unprecedented crisis.
"I would like to thank FIFA, our sister confederations, national associations, clubs, leagues, players and the relevant authorities for their continuous support and commitment and I am convinced that we come out of this crisis stronger and with closer links than ever before,” said UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin on Wednesday.
The round of 16 second legs are yet to be played:
Juventus vs Lyon (0-1)
Manchester City vs Real Madrid (2-1)
Bayern vs Chelsea (3-0)
Barcelona vs Napoli (1-1)
The UEFA Executive Committee also announced the revised schedule to conclude this season's Europa League on Wednesday.
The 2019/20 UEFA Europa League quarter-finals, semi-finals and final will be played as a straight knockout tournament across four cities in Germany in August: Cologne, Duisburg, Düsseldorf and Gelsenkirchen. All these ties will be single-leg fixtures.
A decision is pending on whether the round of 16 second legs will take place at the home team's stadium or in Germany. The ties where the first leg was also postponed – namely Inter vs Getafe and Sevilla vs Roma – will be played as a single leg at a venue to be confirmed.
The round of 16 stands as follows:
Sevilla vs Roma
Inter Milan vs Getafe
Manchester United vs LASK (5-0)
Basel vs Frankfurt (3-0)
Copenhagen vs ?stanbul Ba?ak?ehir (0-1)
Shakhtar Donetsk vs Wolfsburg (2-1)
Leverkusen vs Rangers (3-1)
Wolves vs Olympiacos (1-1)
UCL and Europa League campaigns were suspended in March due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.