UEFA to decide on closed-door matches in July

On June 17, the UEFA Executive Committee held video meeting and took several decisions regarding the regulations, format, calendar, and venues for a variety of UEFA club and national team competitions.

Commenting on the decisions, UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin, said:

"I am delighted that we can resume almost all of our competitions. Football is leading the return to more normal life here in Europe, and I want to thank all those, particularly health workers, who have taken risks and made sacrifices to allow us to start playing again."

"The whole of the football community has worked for hand in hand together to arrive at the point where the game can resume, and I thank everyone from the football world and from the governments who helped us to come to the situation we are [in] today. I would also like to give a special thanks to all the federations."

"I'm proud of the fact that footballers are leading some of today's most important international debates. We have seen players like Raheem Sterling, Marcelo, Jérôme Boateng, and many others make important stands over Black Lives Matter. And just yesterday, we saw Marcus Rashford change government policy to stop children suffering from hunger.

Football really can be an essential vehicle for good, and these examples demonstrate that."

"We will do everything in our possibilities to protect the health of all the participants…we hope that everything will be fine until we organize the Champions League final eight [in Portugal] or the Europa League round of 16 in Germany. For now, there is no reason to have a plan B. We are assessing the situation not week by week but day by day, and we will adapt when the time comes and if necessary."

"We'll regularly assess the situation across the continent concerning closed-door matches, and we'll take stock of the various local authorities' positions to see if and when spectators could gradually return to our matches.

If I would answer today, we don't think that we could have spectators at the Europa League and Champions League quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals. But things are changing rapidly. A month ago, I couldn't even answer whether we could play the competition."

"We will assess the situation at the beginning of July, and then, we will see what the situation will be."