Clock ticking for Euro 2020: Can the tournament go ahead?

There are just over 150 days until the start of the delayed Euro 2020. With Europe still battling to control the COVID-19 pandemic, the prospect of Italy meeting Turkey in the tournament’s curtain-raiser in Rome on June 11 seems so far beyond a distant horizon that it hardly seems credible to contemplate. But despite the uncertainty and concern about the worsening situation in countries across Europe, with the infection rate growing sharply in many nations over the past month, UEFA is still attempting to navigate a safe path to a successful tournament. Sources tell ESPN that UEFA has three possible Euro 2020 scenarios and formats.

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A final decision on how Euro 2020 will look is due in mid-March, with an acceptance within UEFA that waiting until its Congress on April 20 would be too late to enable re-organisation and the issue of ticket sales — if fans are even allowed — for a re-shaped tournament.

Ninety percent of tickets were sold prior to the pandemic and sources have said that only a “minimal” number have been returned for a refund, leaving UEFA with a problem when, rather than if, crowd limitations are imposed.

At this stage of the pandemic, and with five months until the tournament is due to begin, it’s all but certain that Euro 2020 will not be played in front of full stadiums in the 12 host cities across the continent. The best-case scenario is stadiums being no more than 70% full, with the back-up plan of grounds being used to just 30% capacity if the vaccine roll-out fails to ensure some kind of normality by the summer.

The third option, which sources say is regarded within UEFA as highly unlikely, is a tournament played behind closed doors in one country, with strictly enforced COVID-secure bubbles for every team. This scenario would call for a much larger version of last season’s eight-team Champions League and Europa League competitions, which were played to a conclusion in Portugal and Germany, respectively, last August.

Football in Europe is struggling right now to cope with the pressures of COVID-19. In England, 2021 has begun with widespread postponements at every level of the game due to a spike in positive tests. Meanwhile in Spain, Barcelona postponed training earlier this week due to two positive cases at the club.

Just last month, UEFA announced the cancellation of the 2021 Men’s and Women’s Under-17 Championships — due to be held in May, in Cyprus and the Faroe Islands, respectively — saying that “the current epidemiological situation in many parts of Europe makes it unrealistic to hold youth competitions in the first months of 2021.” But after taking the decision last March to postpone Euro 2020, sources say that a cancellation this year is simply not an option. It will go ahead, in some shape or form, because the financial damage of not doing so would prove ruinous to many of Europe’s 55 national…