Paris new venue for Uefa’s CL showpiece

Paris will host this season’s Champions League final on May 28, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine led to St Petersburg being stripped of its right to stage the match.

The Uefa executive committee held an emergency meeting to discuss its response to the crisis and has opted to remove the showpiece match from the 68,000-capacity Gazprom Arena in Russia’s second-largest city.

St Petersburg staged seven matches at Euro 2020 last summer, a tournament organised by Uefa, including the quarter-final between Spain and Switzerland.

Before that, it had hosted seven matches at the 2018 World Cup finals, which were held in Russia.

The executive committee also decided Russian and Ukrainian clubs and national teams competing in Uefa competitions will be required to play their home matches at neutral venues until further notice.

This is set to affect Spartak Moscow in the Europa League and also Russia and Ukraine in the 2022-23 Nations League, which is due to get under way in June.

Fifa has yet to take a decision on what to do about next month’s World Cup play-off matches.

Russia host Poland in a play-off semi-final on March 24 and could then face the winner of the Sweden v Czech Republic semi in Russia for a place in Qatar as things stand.

Ukraine are due to face Scotland at Hampden Park in a play-off semi-final on March 24, but that match is also in doubt with the Ukrainian league suspended following the invasion.

It is understood Russia’s Exco member Alexander Dyukov and Ukrainian member Andrii Pavelko were both involved in yesterday’s emergency Uefa meeting.