How Champions League and Europa League fixture schedule is set to look
Uefa are meeting on Wednesday to finalise the schedule for the remainder of this season and the dates to start the next
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Your support makes all the difference.The 2020-21 Premier League season looks set to start on 12 September, as part of Uefa plans for the revised European football calendar, that will be confirmed at Wednesday’s meeting.
It has been all but agreed that the final stages of the Champions League from the quarter-finals on will be in Lisbon from 11-23 August, and Europa League in the Frankfurt area from 6-21 August, but a decision still has to be taken as regards the remaining last-16 games such as Manchester City vs Real Madrid.
Sources say that it is currently likely those games will take place in the already-scheduled venues, so that Madrid have to travel to City, and Chelsea to Bayern Munich for their second legs.
The circumstances mean that teams who go furthest in Europe will have a much shorter close-season, potentially only three weeks if you reach the final.
With Uefa hoping to run the 2020-21 campaign as close to normal as possible before the postponed European Championships next summer, a date of 12 September has been put forward for the start. The Premier League hasn’t yet confirmed it will go with that, but many feel this is likeliest.
The English season usually starts earlier than competitions like Serie A and La Liga, but that is naturally set to be complicated by the widely varying return times after the Covid-19 enforced postponement.
Uefa’s video conference will run for three hours from 11am UK time, and settle all of these issues, as well as the dates for the 2020-21 European competitors, and the 2019-20 women’s Champions League.
The schedule for Euro 2020, remaining play-offs and Nations League will also be decided.
There will then be another video conference on Thursday that decides the 2022 World Cup draw procedure and the club licensing and financial fair play regulations.
Likely revised football calendar:
17 June: Premier League starts
27-28 June: FA Cup quarter-finals
11-12 July: FA Cup semi-finals
26 July: 2019/20 Premier League season ends
1 August: FA Cup final
6 August: Europa League quarter-finals
10-11 August: Europa League semi-finals
12-15 August: Champions League quarter-finals
16-17 August: Europa League semi-finals
18-19 August: Champions League semi-finals
21 August: Europa League final
23 August: Champions League final
12 September: 2020-21 Premier League season starts
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