Women's Euro 2021 in England postponed by a year, says Danish FA
The women’s European Championship, which was due to be held in England next summer, has been postponed until 2022, according to the Danish FA. The move was widely anticipated after Uefa moved the men’s Euros from this summer to next. The International Olympic Committee pushing back the Tokyo Games, in which senior women’s international teams will compete, will have also been a consideration.
Three European teams have qualified to compete in the Olympic Games, the Netherlands, England and Sweden, after they finished as the three best European teams at the Women’s World Cup in France last summer.
When asked for comment on the claim Uefa said: “No formal decision [on the postponement of the women’s Euros] has been made yet but it is indeed a likely option.”
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Uefa met to discuss the different options for this season’s competitions as well as its international tournaments on Wednesday and has postponed all its games until further notice, including the women’s Euro play-offs that were due to be held in June.
The postponement of the tournament will have lifted pressure on the qualifying calendar. England have qualified for the women’s Euros as hosts of the competition. The group winners and three best runners-up will join the Lionesses in the final tournament.
Qualifying, though, only began after the World Cup last summer and is less than halfway through its group stage. With the play-off draw initially scheduled for 25 September and those matches due to take place in October, there was little wriggle room for a rescheduling of the June matches.
Last week the Norwegian FA announced that the men’s Euro tournament had been moved before Uefa’s announcement and on Wednesday the Danish FA released a statement saying: “The women’s Euros and and the [men’s] Under-21 European Championship is moved from the summer of 2021 to the following summer because of the fact that both the Olympics and the men’s Euros will take place in the summer of 2021.”
The additional year gives the FA time to help women’s football recover from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic but will leave them with a decision to make over the future of manager Phil Neville, whose contract expires in 2021. Extending Neville’s tenure is complicated by the now short turnaround between the 2022 European competition and the 2023 World Cup.
