Europe English

UEFA plan to hold Champions League final on 29 August

UEFA is currently planning to hold Champions League final on 29 August in Istanbul.

The European football’s governing body will meet on 23 April next week to discuss more on the possibilities.

That would mean the Europa League final will be held in Gdansk three days earlier.

There are also two scenarios for getting to that situation are under consideration.

The first is to play the quarter-finals and semi-finals as two-legged matches as normal, in July and August.

The second would be for the games to be played as one-off fixtures after the end of the domestic seasons, which shorten the whole competition.

Four of the eight Champions League quarter-finalists are already known, with Manchester City’s high-profile encounter with Real Madrid one of the ties still to be concluded.

In the Europa League, scheduling is more complicated because all eight last-16 second-leg ties are still to be played, with two matches, involving Spanish and Italian teams, yet to play the first legs.