Champions League Set To Resume In August 2020 [See Full Details]

UEFA has announced the remainder of the knockouts will be completed in a single-leg format, as well as confirming plans for the 2020-21 campaign.

UEFA has announced that the Champions League quarter-finals, semi-finals and final will be held in Lisbon between August 12-23.

The competition is set to resume following an extended break due to the coronavirus pandemic with four of the eight Round of 16 second-leg ties still left to be played.

The remaining second-leg matches will be played on August 7-8, with a decision still to be made on whether they will take place at the home team’s stadiums or in Portugal.

Paris Saint-Germain, Atalanta, Atletico Madrid and RB Leipzig have already claimed their place in the quarter-final round, which will take place between August 12-15 at the Estadio da Luz and the Estadio Jose Alvalade.

The semi-final round will be held on August 18-19 with the Estadio da Luz hosting the final on August 23.

With the condensed schedule, all remaining rounds will be played as single-leg ties with extra time and penalty kicks to decide winners.

The draw for the quarter-final round will be held at UEFA headquarters on July 10 with the federation laying out the match schedule at that time.

Istanbul, which was originally selected to host this year’s final, will now host in 2021 with St Petersburg hosting in 2022, Munich in 2023 and Wembley in 2024 as host cities have seen their duties pushed back by one year.

The Europa League, meanwhile, will be played as a straight knock-out tournament in Germany, with Cologne, Duisburg, Dusseldorf and Gelsenkirchen serving as hosts.

In addition to the continuation of club competitions, UEFA confirmed that the 12 original host cities for Euro 2020 have been confirmed as venues for the rescheduled tournament in 2021.

“I am delighted that we are able to resume almost all of our competitions. I am confident that we will not have to endure the fans’ absence for long and that they will be allowed into stadiums sooner rather than later,” said UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin.

“UEFA took a bold decision when it decided to postpone Euro 2020. 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 football community has worked together and shown tremendous unity during this unprecedented crisis. I would like to thank FIFA, our sister confederations, national associations, clubs, leagues, players and the relevant authorities for their continuous support and commitment and I am convinced that we come out of this crisis stronger and with closer links than ever before.”

As a result of the new schedule, there will also be changes to the qualifying phase of the 2020-21 Champions League, which is set to begin on August 8.

Qualifying matches will be played in a single-leg format up until the play-off phase, which will be held over two legs in late September.

The group stage, meanwhile, will kick off on October 20-21 and wrap up on December 8-9.