UEFA has announced that the Champions League will resume on August 7, with the remaining last-16 ties played before the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final take place in Portugal.
There are still four outstanding second-leg matches from the round of 16 to be played that were postponed prior to football’s suspension due to the coronavirus pandemic. These ties are Real Madrid v Manchester City, Juventus v Lyon, Napoli v Barcelona and Chelsea v Bayern Munich.
It is not yet clear whether these matches will take place at their original venues or at neutral stadia. The quarter-finals onwards will be played as a straight knock-out tournament in Portugal, moving the final from its original venue of Istanbul.
Atletico Madrid, RB Leipzig, Paris Saint-Germain and Atalanta have already reached the last eight.
“The quarter-finals, the semi-finals and the final will be played as a straight-eight knockout tournament in Lisbon between the 12th and 23rd of August 2020,” said UEFA deputy general secretary Giorgio Marchetti.
“The remaining round of 16-second leg matches will be played on the 7th and 8th of August, depending on the decision if they will be played in the home stadiums or Portugal.
“If they were to be played in the centralised system Porto and Guimares will host.”
UEFA confirmed Istanbul would now host 2021 final with all venues for subsequent finals pushed back a year.
The Europa League, which is halfway through its last-16 stage will follow a similar pattern, with the final rounds to be played in western Germany, with Inter v Getafe and Sevilla v Roma, both of which had their first-legs postponed due to COVID-19, moving to neutral venues and becoming single-leg ties.
Again, it is yet to be decided whether the remaining second legs will be played at home or neutral venues.
“The quarters, the semi-finals and the final will be played at four German venues in the same region: Cologne, Duisburg, Dusseldorf and Gelsenkirchen between the 10th and 24th of August,” said Marchetti.
“The round of 16 matches will be played on the 5th and 6th of August. Then we have the special cases of Inter vs Getafe and Sevilla vs Roma. These two ties will be played as a single leg at one of the venues in Germany.”
In addition, provisions for qualification for next season’s Champions and Europa Leagues have been announced. The Champions League qualification period will begin on August 8 and end on September 30 and will feature the traditional home and away legs, while the single-legged Europa League preliminary rounds will take place between August 20 and October 1.
The Women’s Champions League will follow a similar format, with all remaining ties taking place at San Mames Stadium in Bilbao and Anoeta Stadium in San Sebastian as a knockout tournament between August 21-30.
Arsenal and Glasgow City are both in the quarter-finals and face Paris Saint-Germain and Wolfsburg respectively.
Istanbul will host the Champions League final in 2021 while Gdansk, originally appointed to stage the 2020 Europa League final, will now host 2021 final.