UEFA TODAY CONFIRMED the Champions League and Europa League seasons will be concluded as ‘Final Eight’ tournaments staged in Portugal and Germany respectively.
All of the games are one-off ties and are straight knockout, settled by extra-time or penalties if level after 90 minutes.
The Champions League games will be staged in Lisbon from 12 to 23 August – the quarter-finals will take place on 12/13/14/15 August, semi-finals on 18/19 August and the final at the Estádio da Luz on 23 August.
The Europa League will use the same format in games to be staged across four German cities - Cologne, Duisburg, Düsseldorf and Gelsenkirchen – between 10 and 21 August 2020.
The Europa League final will take place in Cologne, and the draws for the quarter and semi-finals of both competitions will take place at Uefa HQ in Switzerland on 10 July.
Uefa said today they don’t expect fans to be able to attend these games, although acknowledged the situation may change as the dates draw closer.
The outstanding last-16 second legs in the Champions League – Man City v Real Madrid, Bayern Munich v Chelsea, Juventus v Lyon and Barcelona v Napoli – will be played on 7 and 8 August.
Uefa have not yet decided whether these games will be played at the home grounds of the teams involved or in Portugal.
Istanbul, which was originally appointed to stage the 2020 final will now host the 2021 final, whereas the venues for subsequent finals have all agreed to host these a year later than originally planned, with St-Petersburg in 2022, Munich in 2023 and London (Wembley) in 2024.
These decisions have been mirrored in the Europa League, where the unplayed last-16 second legs – including Manchester United v LASK, Bayer Leverkusen v Rangers and Wolves v Olympiakos – will be staged on 5 and 6 August.
The venues of these games have yet to be finalised – if they are not staged at home venues, they will instead be moved to Germany.
The two last-16 ties that didn’t play their first legs – Inter Milan v Getafe and Sevilla v Roma – will be played as one-off ties at a venue yet to be confirmed. Gdansk, due to host this year’s Europa League final, will now host the 2021 decider, with Seville and Budapest taking the final a year later than planned.
All remaining matches in the Women’s Champions League will be played as a final eight straight knock-out tournament at the San Mamés Stadium in Bilbao and the Anoeta Stadium in San Sebastián, with quarter-finals on 21 and 22 August, semi-finals on 25/26 August, and the final taking place in San Sebastián on 30 August.
A draw will also take place at Uefa HQ in Nyon on 26 June to determine the order of matches.
Teams will be allowed use five substitutions in these games, but will not be allowed to play new signings, so Chelsea will be unable to use Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner, for example.
Next season’s Champions League will begin on 20 October, with the Europa League kicking off later that same week.
