European football’s governing body UEFA has rejected reports that it has contacted Portuguese authorities over moving this season’s Champions League final to Lisbon from Istanbul.
The match “will take place in Istanbul on June 10 as planned,” UEFA told German agency DPA on Friday. “We have no further comment to make.”
The British tabloid The Daily Mail recently reported on the possibility of staging the final in Lisbon in the event of unrest in Istanbul following the Turkish presidential elections.
According to the report, the prospect of civil unrest has not been ruled out if current president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been in power for two decades, is defeated at the polls on Sunday.
UEFA is reportedly “extremely reluctant” to change the venue of the final, as European football’s biggest event has already been moved twice from Istanbul due to Covid-19 in 2020 (Lisbon) and 2021 (Porto), according to the Daily Mail, but the body is said to be already working on other options.
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The Portuguese capital was UEFA’s plan B during the Covid-19 pandemic, hosting a closed-door mini-tournament from the quarter-finals onwards in 2020.
In 2022, the Stade de France in Saint-Denis replaced St Petersburg’s Krestovsky Stadium as the venue for the final due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since February 24.
