Home » Sport » Reconfinement in Lisbon: UEFA “has no plan B” for the Champions League

Reconfinement in Lisbon: UEFA “has no plan B” for the Champions League

Faced with the restructuring measures taken in Lisbon where the Champions League final tournament is scheduled for August, UEFA said on Tuesday that there is “no reason to plan a plan B”.

“We hope everything will be fine and that it will be possible to organize the tournament in Portugal. For the moment, there is no reason to plan a plan B,” a spokesman for AFP told AFP. UEFA, stating that the European football body is “in permanent contact with the Portuguese Football Federation and local authorities”.

“We are monitoring the situation on a daily basis and will adapt when the time comes if necessary,” he added, echoing the words of UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin on June 17.

As of Wednesday, residents of 19 neighborhoods in the northern suburbs of Lisbon, where foci of contagion to the coronavirus persist, will again be confined to their homes, Prime Minister Antonio Costa announced.

In these contiguous sub-municipalities but spread over five municipalities, including that of Lisbon itself, gatherings will be limited to five people, compared to 10 people in the entire capital region and 20 in the rest of Portugal. The final of the 2019-2020 Champions League, competition suspended mid-March because of the coronavirus, is to take place on Sunday August 23 in Lisbon, after an unprecedented final tournament bringing together eight teams in the Portuguese capital from August 12.

Four teams have already qualified for the C1 quarter-finals: Paris SG, RB Leipzig, Atalanta Bergamo and Atlético Madrid.

The other four tickets will be allocated after the round of last 16 remaining to be played and scheduled for August 7 and 8 in places yet to be determined, either on the home team’s field, or in Portugal.

The presence or absence of spectators in this tournament will be “regularly assessed” depending on the health situation, said UEFA on June 17.

In Portugal, a country of around 10 million inhabitants, where the mask is compulsory in enclosed spaces, the number of new daily cases has risen in recent days to between 300 and 400, when it had dropped to around one hundred may’s beginning.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.