With football slowly making its way back, the return of the Champions League and Europa League remains undecided. Despite there being no official communication from European football's organizing body, the Independent report that the plan is to wrap up the tournament in a World Cup style two-week format.
While these rumors have been around for a while, they have recently picked up traction as UEFA aims to find a solution for their two club competitions. A final decision regarding the 2019/20 seasons is not due until June 17 but the Independent write that European football's governing body favors the aforementioned proposition.
This plan would see both competitions wrap up in the space of around 14 days in the month of August. While nothing is finalized, the talk of the town is that the current two-legged format will be scrapped for the 2019/20 quarter-finals and semi-finals. Furthermore, given that the last three stages of the two tournaments will likely be one-off matches, UEFA wishes to stage all of the remaining games in one city.
The 2019/20 Champions League final hosting rights had been awarded to Istanbul but that is no longer a feasible destination as fans will not be able to attend. Lisbon, Frankfurt, and Moscow are thus all bidding to stage the remainder of UEFA's two competitions.
Interestingly, BILD recently reported that Lisbon has already been chosen. Due to the large number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Russia, its capital city was deemed an unsafe choice, according to the German tabloid.
Frankfurt, on the other hand, was an attractive option but UEFA reportedly opted against this city as they felt it would hand an unfair advantage to the two remaining Bundesliga clubs. As a result, Portugal's capital city was bestowed with the honor. Lisbon boasts two five-star ranked stadiums in the form of Estádio da Luz and Estádio José Alvalade, which is said to be a huge factor, but it should be noted that all of these claims are nothing more than rumors at this point as there has been no official confirmation.
