Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
To curtail the spread of the coronavirus, activities globally are shutting down or getting postponed, and in that vein, the Eurpean football’s governing body, Union of European Football Association (UEFA) on Tuesday postponed this year’s Euro 2020 until the summer of 2021 over the disruption caused by the disease.
As a result, the tournament, due to take place from June 12 through July 12 this year at 12 venues across Europe, will now run from June 11 to July 11 next year. This will now provide a chance for European leagues that have been suspended to be completed.
The European football’s governing body held its scheduled conference call with the continent’s 55 national football associations and agreed to postpone the tournament till next year.
Other UEFA tournaments like the Nations League and the European Under-21 Championships which were supposed to hold this year were also rescheduled to take place next year.
Also, the 2021 UEFA Women’s European Championship is set to take place in England and begins on 7 July, four days before the proposed men’s final and might infringe on the women’s European Championship.
In South America, the Copa América has also been postponed until 2021 by the South American Football Federation., CONMEBOL.
“This is an extraordinary measure for an unexpected situation and responds to the fundamental need to avoid the exponential evolution of the virus,” said Conmebol’s president Alejandro Domínguez.
The regional tournament was scheduled to hold in Colombia and Argentina from June 11-July 11 and will now be staged between June 11 and July 11, 2021.
The only big event this year that may go as planned is the Tokyo 2020 Olympics set for Japan later this year.
In Nigeria, the federal government on Tuesday also had to postpone the National Sports Festival, Edo 2020 after another case of the coronavirus was confirmed in Nigeria.
The Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Mr Sunday Dare, noted that the event scheduled to start on March 22 till April 1, 2020 had to be postponed as a precautionary move against COVID-19, adding that safeguarding Nigerians was a major priority.
As at the time of this report, a new date had not been disclosed.
