UEFA: “Euro 2020 definitely this year”
February 25, 2021
By Nik Roseveare
Dr Daniel Koch, UEFA’s medical advisor, has said that the Euro 2020 tournament will definitely go ahead this year, and believes that fans could yet be allowed to travel internationally to the games.
The tournament was postponed last summer because of the pandemic and rescheduled for June 11th to July 11th this year.
“There is no way the Euros will not happen, they will happen,” Koch told Reuters in an interview. “There is no worst-case scenario, there are realistic scenarios and best-case scenarios.”
Koch said UEFA will make a decision in early April on the suitability of venues and planned capacities after consulting with the 12 host countries. But he said the confederation would keep the option in place to allow for fan numbers to be scaled up should the situation allow.
“I think there will be a lot of flexibility at least up until the end of April, a decision must be made at the beginning of April but then there is a lot of flexibility to say, now we can scale-up because the situation improved much more than expected,” Koch said.
UEFA has asked the 12 host nations to provide their plans for stadium entry and other issues. The governing body last year outlined four operational scenarios – for full stadiums, 50-100 per cent capacity or 20-30 per cent capacity and games behind closed doors. Plans to hold the tournament in just one country reportedly remains on the table – with the UK having thrown their name into the hat should such an outcome prevail.
In the UK, the TV rights for the tournament will be shared between BBC and ITV.