The second legs of all remaining Champions League and Europa League last-16 games will be played at home stadiums, as opposed to at neutral venues.
The competitions are set to get back underway again on 7 August, having been suspended back in March due to COVID-19.
Breaking: Second legs of all remaining Champions League last-16 games will be played at home stadiums
— Rob Harris (@RobHarris) July 9, 2020
The specifics of the return are still being decided but the UEFA have confirmed that all remaining last-16 ties will be played at their originally planned stadiums. There had been discussion of moving games to neutral territory due to safety concerns but that has now been dismissed.
“Consistent with the principle of sporting fairness and considering that current conditions – all clubs due to play at home the return leg of the Round of 16 are currently playing the remaining matches of their domestic leagues in their own stadiums and that travelling is possible without restrictions for the visiting clubs – the UEFA Executive Committee decided that the remaining UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League Round of 16 second-leg matches will be played at the home teams’ stadiums,” a statement read.
“As already communicated in June, the ties FC Internazionale Milano v Getafe CF and Sevilla FC v AS Roma, whose first leg was also postponed, will be played as a single leg in Germany.
“UEFA will continue to monitor the situation and reserves the right to reassign any such matches to the venues of the final tournament of the relevant competition should new events occur that would make it impossible to play one or more matches at the original venues.”
The news will be welcomed by Manchester City and Juventus in particular. Both sides will be aiming to win the competition this season and stood to lose crucial home advantage if games were moved to neutral arenas.
A full fixture list will be revealed after the Champions League and Europa League draws – which take place on Friday.
The remaining last 16 fixtures for the Champions League are as follows:
Champions League
Manchester City (2) vs (1) Real Madrid
Barcelona (1) vs (1) Napoli
Bayern Munich (3) vs (0) Chelsea
Juventus (0) vs (1) Lyon
And here are the remaining Europa League ties:
Europa League Second Legs
Wolves (1) vs (1) Olympiacos
Leverkusen (3) vs (1) Rangers
Shakhtar Donetsk (2) vs (1) Wolfsburg
Copenhagen (0) vs (1) ?stanbul Ba?ak?ehir
Basel (3) vs (0) Eintracht Frankfurt
Manchester United (5) vs (0) LASK
Europa League One-Off Ties
Inter vs Getafe
Sevilla vs Roma
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