Edinburgh cup clash with Bordeaux-begles set for September
Edinburgh will face Bordeaux Begles in the quarter-finals of the Challenge Cup in September after new dates were thrashed out for the latter stages of the European club competitions.
EPCR, the body that runs both the Heineken Cup and the Challenge Cup, met on Wednesday and announced the new schedule for the knockout stages of the 2019-20 tournaments which were postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Subject to government guidelines, it is now planned that the quarter-finals of both competitions will be played on the weekend of 18/19/20 September, with the semi-finals scheduled for the weekend of 25/26/27 September.
Edinburgh are due to play Bordeaux away in the last eight of the Challenge Cup. The sides have already met in the pool stage, with Bordeaux winning 32-17 in France after a 16-16 draw at BT Murrayfield.
Epcrsaidexactfixturedates, venues, kick-off times and TV
Quarter-finals: w/e of 18/19/20 Sept Semi-finals: w/e of 25/26/27 Sept Challenge Cup final: Fri 16 Oct Heineken Cup final: Sat 17 Oct
Scheduled to start w/e of 11/12/13 December
coverage will be announced “in the near future”.
Dates for the finals were also agreed at the EPCR board meeting. The Challenge Cup final will take place on Friday 16 October, with the Heineken
Champions Cup following day.
EPCR said it remained committed to staging the matches in Marseille, but added in a statement: “The situation is under review in light of public gathering and international travel restrictions which might be in place at the time of the finals.”
Plans for next season’s European competitions were also discussed. They will not start until December due to the backlog caused by the delayed 2019-20 tournaments.
The statement added: “As previously communicated,
final the newheinekenchampionscup and Challenge Cup tournament formats for the 2020/21 season are being considered as a consequence of widespread fixture disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. A 24-club Heineken Champions Cup with eight representatives from each of Europe’s leading league competitions is one of the options under discussion.”
Such a scenario would likely see both Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors qualify for next year’s elite competition.
The 2020-21 tournaments are scheduled to start on the weekend of 11/12/13 December.