Two Major International Soccer Tournaments Were Rescheduled For Next Summer Due To Coronavirus

There’s a whole lot of soccer that was scheduled to be played, both domestically and internationally, before COVID-19 swept in and essentially made the entire sport stop for the time being. All of the major domestic leagues in Europe, along with nearly every other league across the globe, have stopped playing, while players and coaches abroad have tested positive for coronavirus in recent days.

Unlike the NBA and NHL, soccer leagues worldwide are in an extra tricky situation, as they need to sort out their own business while being cognizant of continental club tournaments and trying to make sure players could suit up for international competitions. But on Tuesday, we got a look into how the coming months will play out with some of the biggest leagues in the world.

The biggest news revolves around Euro 2020 and South America’s premier international tournament, Copa Americá. Both were slated to occur this summer, but instead, both have been pushed to next summer.

This frees up the summer months this year in the event that leagues are going to be able to resume playing, something that is, of course, not guaranteed. UEFA, the organizing body that oversees the sport in Europe, understands this, and said that the plan is to resume play in its domestic leagues and its two major continental tournaments — Champions League and Europa League — if possible.

There are reasons why that June 30 date is so big in European football. Contracts expire on July 1, meaning the transfer market opens up. Qualifiers for next year’s continental tournaments start in earnest in late June, but ramp up beginning in early July, while domestic leagues have promotion/relegation things to sort out. And oh yeah, there’s the matter of crowning champions in said domestic leagues (which could, theoretically, just come down giving trophies to those currently atop the table) and in tournaments around Europe, whether it be the UEFA competitions or domestic competitions like the FA Cup in England and Coppa Italia in Italy.

Basically, it’s a whole lot of footy that would need to happen, with one example of what the remainder of the year could look like coming from Dale Johnson of ESPN, who mapped out the remainder of the campaign for Manchester City, a club that usually plays a ton of matches this time of year. As Johnson said, with the assumption that there would be one international break and the normally two-legged Champions League ties are turned into solo outings, it could look something like this:

It’s a startling amount of games in a short period of time, something that would be pretty unique to City, although other clubs (Bayern Munich, Juventus, etc.) also have multiple domestic competitions and a continental competition on the horizon. And of course, there’s no guarantee this happens, anyway, due to the spread of coronavirus. Still, at least we now can say that there’s a plan. Whether or not it comes to fruition is another thing.