April 28 – Amidst growing frustration over the confused state of affairs throughout its membership, UEFA has imposed a May 25 deadline for European leagues to say whether or not they intend to complete or cancel their domestic seasons.
Football has ground to a halt in all major leagues since March and three countries – France, Netherlands and Belgium – have already said their campaigns are over, precisely the opposite to what UEFA wants, firstly so that it can plan on a date for the resumption of the Champions League, secondly so it knows which clubs can take part in Europe in 2020-21.
In a letter to all its 55 federations, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin wrote that leagues had to inform UEFA of their prospective restart date while any league cancelling its season would need to produce a list of teams that have qualified for European club competitions, also by May 25.
Stakeholders have been told they “should be in a position to communicate to Uefa by 25 May the planned restart of their domestic competitions, including the date of restart and the relevant competition format”.
“In the event that a domestic competition is to be prematurely terminated for legitimate reasons… Uefa would require the national association to explain by May 25 the special circumstances justifying such premature termination and to select clubs for the Uefa club competitions 2020-21 on the basis of sporting merit in the 2019-20 domestic competitions.”
UEFA last week outlined “legitimate reasons” for an abandoned season. These include an official government order prohibiting sports events, which is what has happened in France and the Netherlands, and “insurmountable economic problems” which make finishing the season impossible.
As well as urging terminated leagues to base European qualification on sporting merit, UEFA also urged clubs to “explore all possible options” to finish their seasons. But already three leagues have had their hands forced by national government guidelines and others are expected to follow.
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