OFC Champions League: new schedule proposal under discussion

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OFC Champions League is the biggest club competition in Oceania. The current edition of the continental tournament was stopped due to COVID-19 pandemics and the upcoming matches are not scheduled yet. However, Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) organized an on-line meeting with clubs and federations on Wednesday to discuss about this issue.

The 2020 OFC Champions League was initially scheduled to finish in May but everything has changed due to COVID-19 pandemics. Now the Confederation, federations and clubs are discussing the best way to resume the tournament.

OFC set some minimum conditions to resume the tournament like: borders open, commercial flights operating, no entry restrictions, no limit to gathering of people for sporting events and availability to train without restrictions. According to OFC, any variation of these minimum conditions will create unfair situations to affected clubs.

At the present moment there is a proposal to play the whole knockout stage in a “mini-tournament” in September. The eight teams qualified to quarter-finals would have two months to get ready for the next challenge in the continental tournament. Seven of eight teams support this idea.

The “mini-tournament” would be played in only one location from 19 to 26 September with the same format: Winners of each Group Stage play a Runner up in a Quarter Final. Despite being accepted by most teams, it still depends on these minimum conditions that were mentioned above.

If travel restrictions for all teams continue until July 19, the final decision about playing or not 2020 OFC Champions League would be postponed to August 24. If the current OFC Champions League edition cannot be played due to the current situation impacted by COVID-19, and if the FIFA Club World Cup 2020 still goes ahead, OFC will be required to nominate a representative anyway.

An Executive Committee meeting is scheduled to take place on July 24 to keep discussing about the current issues. Oceania Football Center team is keeping up with this situation in order to bring the most accurate information to our followers.