MOSCOW, April 16. /TASS/. The Executive Committee of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) is set to discuss via a videoconference next week recent developments regarding the ongoing global spread of the novel coronavirus and its impact on football in Europe, the UEFA press service said in a statement on Thursday.

"The UEFA Executive Committee will meet via videoconference next Thursday 23 April for an update meeting to discuss the latest developments regarding the impact caused by the coronavirus outbreak on European football," the statement reads.

"This meeting will follow an information session for the General Secretaries of UEFA’s 55 member associations on Tuesday 21 April," according to the UEFA press service. "The meetings will look at developments across both domestic and European competitions."

The UEFA announced on April 1 its decision to postpone indefinitely the resumption of the Champions League and Europa League matches. That decision followed a videoconference meeting on April 1 of the organization’s executives with general secretaries of all 55 UEFA member associations and was based on recommendations delivered by working groups, which were established on March 17.

As of today, all European national football tournaments, with the exception of the championship in Belarus, have been suspended. On March 17, UEFA decided to postpone the 2020 UEFA Euro Cup for exactly one year as a preventive measure against COVID-19. The championship is now scheduled to be held between June 11 and July 11, 2021.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus — named COVID-19 by the WHO — have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 2,100,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 137,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 526,700 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

To date, a total of 27,938 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 2,304 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 232 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.