Champions League Final Heads To Lisbon In August

European soccer governing body UEFA has selected Lisbon as the venue for this season’s Champions League final. The showpiece match will be preceded by a mini-tournament to decide the finalists. 

“It wasn’t a fight between fight between Germany, Spain and Portugal,” said UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin. “They just offered us help and at the end we agreed that the Champions League goes to Portugal, the Europa League to Germany and the Women’s Champions League to Spain.”

UEFA competitions are scheduled to restart after the completion of the domestic leagues on August 3, with Lisbon hosting the Champions League final twenty days later at Benfica’s Estadio da Luz.

“UEFA took a bold decision when it decided to postpone Euro 2020,” said Ceferin. “But in doing so, we created the space which has allowed domestic club competitions across the continent to resume, where possible, and play to a conclusion. While the game has suffered huge difficulties as a result of the pandemic, those blows would have landed much harder if we had not shown leadership in those early days.”

The Champions League will resume with the second-leg of the remaining last 16 games played on 7 and 8 August. Atlético Madrid, RB Leipzig, Atalanta and Paris Saint-Germain have already qualified for the last eight, but Manchester City, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona are among the clubs who still have to complete their second-round ties. UEFA said it has yet to decide whether to host the matches at the home grounds or at a neutral venue.

This season’s final had been due to be played in Istanbul. Instead, the Turkish capital will get to stage the match in 2021. Other finals have also been pushed back a year with St Petersburg as host city in 2022, Munich in 2023 and London in 2024.

Germany will stage the last eight of the Europa League from 10-21 August across four cities: Duisburg, Gelsenkirchen, Frankfurt and Cologne.

UEFA remained tight-lipped about the possibility of any fans attending matches. “If I answer today, I don’t think spectators will be at the Champions League quarterfinals, semifinals or final, but things are changing rapidly,” said Ceferin. “A month ago, I wasn’t even sure if we would play the competitions, but now we will do it, hopefully.”

“We haven’t decided yet about fans or not. We will assess at the beginning of July. It would be incompetent for us to decide in advance about an uncertain situation.

“It looks like we will be playing without fans,” concluded Ceferin. “We have to see what the situation will be like in August. Things are changing, but we will have to decide before the draw.”