Coronavirus: Champions League and Europa League could be decided by mini-tournament
Last updated on .From the section European Football

A mini-tournament to decide the Champions League and Europa League will be one option put forward to ease fixture congestion caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
European football's governing body, Uefa, is hosting a video conference with major stakeholders on Tuesday.
Euro 2020 is set to be postponed to allow league seasons to be completed.
A source close to the situation says all parties must be ready to sacrifice something to reach a solution.
All 55 Uefa members, the boards of the European Club Association and the European Leagues, and a representative of world players' union Fifpro have been invited to Tuesday's meeting.
The Uefa members will also hold an additional meeting to discuss their own reaction.
- All Uefa competitions, including Champions League and Europa League, postponed
- How coronavirus has impacted sporting events around the world
- Italian FA calls for Euros postponement
How would a mini-tournament work?
As with the Premier League, who on Friday stressed their commitment to completing the season, Uefa wants the Champions League and Europa League to reach a conclusion because they also have major broadcasting contracts to satisfy.
Both tournaments are at their last-16 stage, with six matchdays remaining, including the final. There are still 14 last-16 ties across the two competitions to be completed.
Playing the quarter-finals and semi-finals as one-off games would cut two fixtures off the remaining schedule.
Playing them over a handful of days as a mini-tournament - in Istanbul and Gdansk, host cities for this season's finals - would concentrate the matches even further, cutting down on travelling and cause the least disruption to the domestic leagues.
It has not been ruled out these games could be played in conjunction with league matches - nor does the Champions League final have to mark the end of the club campaign as tradition dictates.
Moving Euro 2020, due to take place at venues across Europe from 12 June to 12 July, to next summer would also free up more time to complete domestic and European fixtures.
However, that would then impact on next year's calendar.
Both the Women's European Championship, hosted by England, and the men's European Under-21 Championship, in Hungary and Slovenia, are scheduled for the summer of 2021. The Nations League, the draw for which was held earlier in March, is due to be completed next spring.
In addition, the first edition of the expanded Fifa Club World Cup is set to be held in China in June.
While the big domestic leagues have problems over television contracts to solve if games do not take place, most countries rely on the payments from Uefa that come out of major international tournaments to allow their own leagues to function properly. These would be at risk from any movement of the European Championship and are likely to form part of any agreement.
Uefa has an estimated 400 staff working on the Euros. It is unknown what will happen to them if the tournament does not take place for another 12 months.
The situation is not made any easier by not knowing when football will be able to resume.
Uefa accepts it is impossible to know when current travel restrictions will be lifted, but it cannot wait until they are to draft a plan.
Comments
Join the conversation
Ah, memories....
In the meantime, the only good news is that the bookies will be losing millions due to the current postponement!
Just cancel the whole lot and start again in the 2020 / 2021 Season
-----
Why do people keep writing this nonsense?? How many times does it have to be pointed out that cancelling the 2019 -2020 season is not feasible due to promotion and relegation issues which amount to hundreds of millions of ££! There are numerous options available but this is not one.
Allow domestic leagues to finish if this mess clears up by May
If not void and start afresh in August.
Sorry but if Liverpool are handed the title becuase they are far ahead- should we relegate Norwich because they are bottom? Whos to say they wouldnt win all their remianing games and stay up?
Sadly, the only option is to void the league and start again next season'
In your world who will represent the PL(England)in European competition in the new season?
In your world they can't qualify from a voided previous season.
Nothing is ideal but this way there's nothing drastic, and the players get a spring break as well as a summer one.
Without those national leagues you wouldn’t have a Champions league or Europa league.
Does it really matter if the European competitions miss a year.