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Women's Euro 2021 Set for 2022 Push-Back Over Fears of Sporting Congestion

By Ross Kennerley

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The Women's Euro 2021 tournament looks set to be the latest victim of the coronavirus crisis as fears grow over congestion next summer.

Already we've seen the men's Euro 2020 competition pushed back to next summer, while the 2020 Summer Olympic games have also been affected by the disease, being set back a year.

Due to a congested summer sporting schedule, the Telegraph have revealed that next year's women's tournament is almost certain to be postponed by 12 months.

The new start date for the men’s tournament has been set for 11 June, 2021, with the final taking place on 11 July, which means there would be an overlap with the women's competition - which is currently set for 7 July.

With a plethora of high-profile sporting events due to take place at the same point of the year as it stands, logistically there are concerns as UEFA would be required to prepare a competition in England at the same time many of the organisation's staff are dotted around Europe finalising the men's tournament.

Playing the tournaments back-to-back is being considered, but this could lead to a gap of just a few days between the Euros and the Olympics.

A UEFA source said: "It looks like 2021 is not really an option if we want the competition to have the best possible platform.

“It’s still an option, but to me it is much more likely that it will go to 2022, in the summer, because there are no other football competitions then. If you look at a lot of the factors that would be taken into account when making the decision, I think that’s when you could really have the competition stand by itself."

“We want to find the best date so that it can have its own platform. For the competition to be successful, it has to have a platform on its own. We don’t want it to clash, for instance, with the Olympics.”

UEFA are currently working on finding a new slot for the women's competition and aim to reach a conclusion in the coming weeks. However, a 2020 push-back seems inevitable.