In its infinite wisdom, UEFA has decided that the next European Championships will still be dubbed Euro 2020, even though it's been postponed by a year.
The tournament has been postponed by a year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
It's due to be staged across twelve different European cities, including Dublin.
UEFA's Executive Committee has opted to maintain the Euro 2020 moniker following "a thorough internal review as well as several discussions with partners."
The discussions with tournament partners is believed to be key, as a change to 'Euro 2021' may have cost sponsors millions.
Last month, the New York Times outlined that "Coca-Cola, a longtime partner of UEFA, had started shipping its first Euro 2020-branded packages to some markets two weeks before the tournament was postponed, and a promotion with the maker of the tournament’s popular sticker books was underway in Switzerland."
Despite this, UEFA had its lawyers trademark 'Euro 2021' just in case.
Tim Crow, a sports marketing consultant told the NY Times, "Anybody who has done it knows that registering any kind of trademark and licensing is a very expensive and time-consuming exercise.
"To rip all that up and start again because you’ve postponed an event is one of the things you don’t necessarily have to do."
In their statement, UEFA say, "This choice is in line with UEFA’s commitment to make UEFA EURO 2020 sustainable and not to generate additional amounts of waste.
"A lot of branded material had already been produced by the time of the tournament’s postponement.
"A change to the name of the event would have meant the destruction and reproduction of such items."
Benefits payments
Meanwhile, 676 clubs across Europe are to receive some much-needed cash with UEFA releasing early its club benefits payments.
The payments are for clubs who released players during the qualifying process for Euro 2020.
UEFA say the payments were due to be made after the completion of the Euro 2020 playoffs, which are no suspended until October at the earliest.
European football's governing body broke down the payments as follows:
- €50m will go to clubs having released players for the 39 national teams not involved in the European Qualifiers play-offs.
- €17.7m will go to clubs having released players for the 16 national teams taking part in the European Qualifiers play-offs (not including payments for the play-off matches, which will be paid on completion of the play-offs).
- The balance of €2.7m - related to players released for the play-offs - will be distributed upon completion of these play-off matches in the autumn.
Clubs from all 55 member nations will receive payments of between €3,200 and €630,000 for their contributions to the Euro qualifiers.
European Club Association (ECA) chair Andrea Agnelli welcomed the move, saying, "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.
"Whilst public health remains our primary concern, securing financial, legal and regulatory relief in advance of restarting football across Europe, once it is safe to do so, is of paramount importance to ECA and its members."
