Return dates and new format for 2019/20 Champions League and Europa League seasons revealed

June 17, 2020 By Ali M.

UEFA's two club competitions will be back in August, as previously reported, with a new format.

After weeks and weeks of rumors, UEFA has confirmed the reports regarding the Champions League and Europa League to be true. The two premier club competitions in Europe will return to action in August as speculated and will undergo format changes in order to wrap up the season disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Starting off with the Champions League, the more beloved of the two competitions, it will be returning on August 07, with the four remaining round of 16 second leg ties set to take place on that date and the following day – August 08. Those four remaining ties are Juventus vs Lyon, Man City vs Real Madrid, Bayern vs Chelsea, and Barcelona vs Napoli.

As for the quarter-final, this stage will take place on August 12-15 while the semi-final will be staged on August 18-19. The final will take place on the 23rd of that month. The date for the last-eight and last-four draw has not been decided but what has been revealed is that all the games will kick off at 21:00 CET.

UEFA Champions League 2019/20 schedule

August 7-8: Round of 16 second legs
August 12-15: Quarter-finals
August 18-19: Semi-finals
August 23: Final

As for the Europa League, it will be returning on August 5, with the remaining round of 16 ties set to wrap up the following day on August 6. The pending fixtures are Sevilla vs Roma, Inter Milan vs Getafe, Man United vs LASK, Basel vs Frankfurt, Copenhagen vs İstanbul Başakşehir, Shakhtar Donetsk vs Wolfsburg, Leverkusen vs Rangers, and Wolves vs Olympiacos. The quarter-final will be played on August 10-11 while the semi-final will take place on August 16-17. The final showdown will be staged on 21st of that month.

The 2019/20 Europa League schedule

August 5–6: Round of 16
August 10–11: Quarter-finals
August 16–17: Semi-finals
August 21: Final

Both competitions will undergo format changes, abandoning the home-and-away system for the remainder of the season. Instead, both competitions will adopt a single knockout format, with every game being a single-leg affair. In the Europa League round of 16, first legs of both the Sevilla vs Roma and Inter Milan vs Getafe match-ups were not played. As a result, these fixtures will be held via the aforementioned one-leg format.

As rumored, the quarter-final, semi-final, and final of the Champions League will all be staged in Lisbon while those exact same stages of the Europa League will be held across four German cities: Cologne, Duisburg, Düsseldorf and Gelsenkirchen. As a result, the Estádio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica or Estádio José Alvalade will host the upcoming UCL final, with Istanbul now set to stage the 2020/21 final.

And finally, teams from both competitions are now allowed to register three new players so long as they were eligible for the last registration deadlines. On top of that, the number of subs permitted per game has been increased from three to five for the remainder of the season. These format and regulation changes also apply to the 2019/20 UEFA Women’s Champions League campaign, with that competition set to return on August 21. Below is the schedule for UEFA premier women’s club competition.