Cologne’s RheinEnergieStadion has been chosen by UEFA to host this season’s Europa League final, with the competition concluding in August across four German venues.
The 2019/20 UEFA Europa League final was due to be staged in Gdansk, Poland on May 27.
However, the COVID-19 outbreak and consequent interruption of domestic and European football in March caused that to be postponed.
With the last-16 still to be completed, and time limited, the format of the final stages of the competition has been amended with the quarterfinals, semifinals and final all now set to be held in North Rhine-Westphalia.
UEFA announced after a meeting of their Executive Committee on Wednesday that Cologne’s RheinEnergieStadion, Schalke’s Veltins Arena, Fortuna Düsseldorf’s Merkur Spiel-Arena and MSV Duisburg’s Schauinsland-Reisen-Arena will be the venues for the final stages of the competition.
The quarterfinals will take place on August 10 and 11, with two games per night – one in each of the four venues.
The first semifinal will then be staged on August 16, with the second the following night, with the venues unconfirmed.
The final will take place in Cologne on August 21.
Three Bundesliga sides are still in the running, with Bayer Leverkusen hosting Rangers for the second leg of their last-16 tie having won 3-1 in Scotland, Eintracht Frankfurt travelling to Switzerland to face Basel having lost the first leg 3-0 at home, and Wolfsburg away at Shakhtar Donetsk after a 2-1 defeat at the Volkswagen Arena.
The last time the Europa League final was held in Germany was in 2010 when Hamburg’s Volksparkstadion staged Atletico Madrid’s 2-1 extra-time win over Fulham.
Previously, Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park was the venue for Liverpool’s win over Deportivo Alaves in 2001.
