Marseille chosen to host 2020 European rugby finals

MARSEILLE: The 2020 European club rugby finals will be played at the Velodrome in Marseille on May 22 and 23, the competition organisers announced yesterday. The European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR),

which runs the European Champions Cup and Challenge Cup, did not name any other bidders. British media had reported that English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur, who are putting the finishing touches to a 62,000 stadium in North London, were interested.

“While France is a traditional stronghold of the great game of rugby, a European finals weekend in the city of Marseille will be a whole new experience both for local fans and for our loyal supporters who travel in their tens of thousands year after year,” Vincent Gaillard, the director general of the EPCR, said on the organisation’s website.

The Velodrome is run by football club Marseille and is used for big Top 14 games by Toulon. The stadium hosted the 2010 Challenge Cup final when Cardiff Blues beat Toulon. It has undergone several redevelopments since it opened in 1937, the most recent in 2014, and has hosted matches in the 1938 and 1998 football World Cups, the 1960, 1984 and 2016 European football championships and the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

It is scheduled to host games in the 2023 rugby World Cup. The first European Cup final was in Cardiff in January 1995, so this will mark the 25th anniversary of the competition. The 2019 finals will be in Newcastle in northeast England. — Reuters