(Reuters) – UEFA has released 236.5 million euros ($256 million) to its 55 member associations who are grappling with the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Europe’s soccer governing body said on Monday.
UEFA said each association would receive 4.3 million euros from a fund earmarked for targeted areas of development but decided to allow each association to “set its own priorities” due to the new coronavirus outbreak.
“UEFA wants to help its members to respond in ways that are appropriate to their specific circumstances,” its president Aleksander Ceferin said in a statement https://www.uefa.com/insideuefa/mediaservices/mediareleases/newsid=2641748.html.
“As a result, we have agreed that up to 4.3 million euros per association, paid for the remainder of this season and next, as well as part of the investment funding, can be used as our members see fit to rebuild the football community.”
UEFA is considering two possibilities for resuming its Champions League and Europa League competitions — run domestic and European competitions in parallel or complete domestic matches before restarting UEFA competitions in August.
Soccer has been suspended across the continent since March and last week UEFA released nearly 70 million euros of compensation payments to clubs ahead of schedule to help deal with the loss of revenues due to the stoppage.
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
