UEFA postpones all national teams’ matches scheduled for June

MOSCOW. KAZINFORM The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has postponed indefinitely all national teams’ matches, which were scheduled for June, the press service of the European governing body of football announced in a statement on Wednesday.

The decision was made by the UEFA Executive Committee following a videoconference meeting on Wednesday with the general secretaries of all 55 UEFA member associations and recommendations made by the working groups created on March 17, TASS reports.

«All national team matches for men and women due to be played in June 2020 are postponed until further notice,» the statement reads. «This includes the play-off matches for UEFA Euro 2020 and qualifying matches for UEFA Women’s Euro 2021.»

The UEFA Executive Committee also ruled to cancel the UEFA European Under-17 Championship final tournament and the UEFA European Women’s Under-19 Championship final tournament. The UEFA European Women’s Under-17 Championship final tournament (scheduled for May) and the UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournament (scheduled for July) have been postponed until further notice.

«All other UEFA competition matches, including the centralized international friendly matches, remain postponed until further notice,» the statement added.

As of today, all European national football tournaments, with the exception of the championship in Belarus, have been suspended over the ongoing global spread of the novel coronavirus.

On March 17, UEFA decided to postpone the 2020 UEFA Euro Cup for exactly one year as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 spread. The championship is now scheduled to be held between June 11 and July 11, 2021.

In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. To date, more than 885,860 people have been infected worldwide and over 44,200 deaths have been reported.

So far, a total of 2,777 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 190 patients having recovered from the illness. The country’s latest data indicates 24 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public informed about the coronavirus situation.