European football governing body UEFA said in a statement that it has not decided on the format of qualification for European club competitions yet. The statement is to caution domestic clubs who are rushing to end their seasons like French Ligue 1.
Usually, top domestic leagues in Europe are expected to produce about 6 clubs for European club competitions – four clubs each for the UEFA Champions League while two clubs will be produced for UEFA Europa League.
Some leagues like the Premier League have to present the club that finishes 4th on the league table for two-legged qualification matches against another club from another league. The club that wins the playoff will automatically qualify for next season Champions League.
But since the coronavirus pandemic has halted football in Europe since March, UEFA, like the domestic leagues across the continent, has been looking for means to harmonize the leagues in Europe. Two months have already been lost in the 2019-2020 season which naturally supposes to end on June 30th. Yet, most domestic leagues have not concluded on the best way to end the season.
Only the French Ligue 1 has ended the season and declared Paris Saint Germain the winner of the league for the disrupted season. This decision is still being challenged by some clubs in the league especially Lyon that believes that the club had a chance to qualify for a European competition if the French Football Federation adopted a different format to end the season rather than the point per match format that was used.
In its recent statement, UEFA warned that it is not considering “depriving domestic champions of their genuine right to try to achieve qualification through on-pitch performance for the UEFA Champions League Group Stage”.
“UEFA wishes to clarify that it is currently simply monitoring the evolution of the situation and any potential impact on the format of qualifying rounds for next year’s club competitions”, the statement said.
“To date, no specific options have been developed for the format of qualification for European club competitions.”
Since UEFA has outrightly denied that there was any recommendation from World Health Organization to ban football until 2021, the football governing body is looking at playing qualifying matches for 2020-2021 European competitions after August instead of the earlier scheduled date of June 23, 2020.
