UEFA postpone deadlines for club competitions with Leeds United's promotion quest on hold

The move comes with football on hold throughout Europe due to the ongoing global fight against coronavirus with Leeds United nine games away from a potential return to the Premier League and holding a seven-point cushion in the automatic promotion places.

UEFA announced on March 17 a commitment to complete all domestic and European club competitions by June 30 at the latest, should the situation improve and resuming playing be appropriate and prudent enough.

UEFA said they were allowing for possible adaptations of the 2020/21 UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League qualifying rounds in case of late completion of the 2019-20 sporting season, after June 30.

European football's governing body held a video conference meeting with the general secretaries of all 55 UEFA member associations on Wednesday and all 2020-21 UEFA club competitions are now postponed until further notice.

The decision means that all UEFA Champions League and Europe Leagues are postponed until further notice and the steps are taken with UEFA having already moved this summer's European Championships until next year.

UEFA said deadlines related to all 2020/21 UEFA club competitions were postponed in particular as regards the admission process and the registration of players.

UEFA will set new deadlines in due course.

All national team matches for men and women due to be played in June 2020 are also postponed until further notice.

This includes the play-off matches for UEFA EURO 2020 - which is now being held next year - and qualifying matches for UEFA Women’s EURO 2021.

All other UEFA competition matches, including the centralised international friendly matches, remain postponed until further notice.

The FA has already extended the EFL and Premier League seasons indefinitely with games suspended until at least April 30 though officials are aware there is little chance of play resuming at the end of the month.

The EFL and Premier League have said their primary objective is to deliver a successful conclusion to the rest of the season by finishing the remainder of the campaign on the pitch.

But the coronavirus has the country on lockdown for at least another two weeks with strict social distancing measures and chief medical officer for England Dr Jenny Harries admitted on Monday that it could be six months or longer before the country returned to normality.

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