Football news - UEFA urges leagues to play out the season after coronavirus suspensions

The Belgian Pro League prematurely curtailed their season earlier in April, with Club Brugge declared champions and the table left as it was prior to the competition's suspension, with just one regular matchday left to play before entering a play-off system.

However, UEFA is hoping to see its member associations play out the rest of the campaign in order to protect the integrity of its flagship competitions, saying that Champions League and Europa League qualification should be earned on merit.

"UEFA urges National Associations and Leagues to explore all possible options to play all top domestic competitions giving access to UEFA club competitions to their natural conclusion," a statement read.

"However, UEFA stresses that the health of players, spectators and all those involved in football as well as the public at large must remain the primary concern at this time.

"Should this outcome not be possible, in particular due to calendar issues, it would be preferable that suspended domestic competitions would restart with a different format in a manner which would still facilitate clubs to qualify on sporting merit."

The governing body also confirmed that it hopes for domestic competitions to be played out to their conclusion first, with the 2019/20 editions of their club competitions to be completed in August.

It had been speculated that UEFA could recommend that qualification for the 2020/21 editions of the Champions and Europa Leagues be decided by coefficient but the governing body insists it can overrule any decision over qualification if domestic leagues are not completed.

"UEFA reserves the right to refuse or evaluate the admission to any club proposed by a National Association from a prematurely terminated domestic competition in particular where:

"• the domestic competitions have not been prematurely terminated based on the reasons given in these UEFA guidelines or on the basis of any other legitimate public health reasons;

"• the clubs were selected pursuant to a procedure which was not objective, transparent and non-discriminatory so that the selected clubs could not be considered as having been qualified on sporting merit;

"• there is a public perception of unfairness in the qualification of the club."

Finally, UEFA announced that it was preparing a compensation package worth €70 million for clubs that are being hit financially by the suspension of football across the continent.

"In these difficult times when many clubs are facing financial issues, especially with their cash flow, it was our duty to make sure that clubs receive these payments as quickly as possible," said UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin.

Andrea Agnelli, chairman of the European Club Association (ECA) said: "This represents a much-needed liquidity injection into club finances and is a result of ECA’s joint work with UEFA on safeguarding clubs at this time of existential threat."