MOSCOW, May 8. /TASS/. Russia has provided government guarantees to the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that it is ready to host European Championship matches as the tournament had to be rescheduled to summer 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, General Director of the Russian Organizing Committee Alexei Sorokin told TASS.
The UEFA Euro championship had to be rescheduled from summer 2020 to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, following suit of many other sporting events, with the most crucial one being the Olympics in Tokyo postponed to 2021. Russia’s St. Petersburg will host three group stage matches and a quarterfinal. The matches are also due in London, Munich, Baku, Rome, Bucharest, Dublin, Copenhagen, Bilbao, Glasgow, Budapest and Amsterdam.
"It is all going well, guarantees were signed. The Russian government and relevant agencies have done a great and effective job, irrespective of all the particularities of this moment," Sorokin said. "All agreements were secured, the key point is that the guarantees are signed by the government head and sent to UEFA, just as the corpus of agreements signed at the application stage."
"We are now going ahead with preparations for the European championship. There are no doubts or hesitations. We have confirmed this in documents to the main European football organization," the official added.