Oman Daily Observer

Champions League final moved from Istanbul to Porto

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PARIS: Uefa announced on Thursday that the Champions League final between Manchester City and Chelsea had been moved from Istanbul to Porto.

The match on May 29 has been switched to the Estadio do Dragao to allow English spectators to attend as travel between the UK and Turkey is suspended because of the coronaviru­s pandemic.

Earlier, European football’s governing body announced up to 6,000 supporters from each club will be able to attend.

“We accept that the decision of the British Government to place Turkey on the red list for travel was taken in good faith and in the best interests of protecting its citizens from the spread of the virus but it also presented us with a major challenge in staging a final featuring two English teams’’, Uefa President Aleksander Ceferin said.

“After the year that fans have endured, it is not right that they don’t have the chance to watch their teams in the biggest game of the season’’, he added.

UK citizens returning from red list countries are required to quarantine at a government­approved hotel for 10 days.

Earlier this week, newspaper reports claimed the match would be played at Wembley Stadium.

Supporters groups from the Blues and City had requested the game be moved to England.

The UK’S Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he would have welcomed the fixture being played in London.

“The difficulti­es of moving the final are great and the FA and the authoritie­s made every effort to try to stage the match in England and I would like to thank them for their work in trying to make it happen’’, Ceferin said.

Uefa said coronaviru­s rules in the UK made it difficult to hold the fixture in the English capital.

“Uefa discussed moving the match to England but, despite exhaustive efforts on the part of the Football Associatio­n and the authoritie­s, it was not possible to achieve the necessary exemptions from UK quarantine arrangemen­ts’’, it said.

The final capacity at the ground in northern Portugal is still to be set.

Last season’s final as well as a ‘Final 8’ tournament for the quarterfin­als were also held in Portugal, but in the capital Lisbon.

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