CELTIC are poised to be declared Premiership champions as UEFA come under mounting pressure to order the abandonment of all domestic football.
Europe’s football rulers have been forced to ditch overly-ambitious and totally-unrealistic plans to complete the Champions League and Europa League before the end of June.
Now the UK’s leading soccer authorities are demanding clarity over how to take the next step amid worldwide confusion during the coronavirus pandemic which has brought football to an emergency halt.
A report in the Daily Record quoted: “If next year’s (European) competitions are to take place in line with the current timetable for 2020/21, then UEFA need to issue an edict to the 55 national associations, requesting that they inform them who their respective champions are by June 30 at the latest.
“For that to happen, the leagues clearly require to be completed or curtailed by then – or else national associations will have to nominate their European clubs with the possibility that different clubs will finish in the qualification positions.”
This could force the hand of the SPFL and the English Premier League into declaring current league leaders Celtic and Liverpool as champions even though their respective campaigns have still to be completed.
The Hoops, of course, are 13 points clear at the Premiership pinnacle with only eight games left and were massive favourites to lift their ninth successive flag.
With the clamour for guidance growing on UEFA to take a lead, president Aleksander Ceferin is heading up a working group which yesterday admitted defeat on plans to complete the Champions League and Europa League over April, May and June.
Ceferin had originally pushed the date of the Champions League Final in Istanbul back to June 27 from May 30. He has also hoped to move the Europa League Final in Gdansk from May 27 to June 24.
Those plans were met with disbelief by associations across Europe with the SPFL and SFA already preparing for the prospect of the game going into cold storage until August at the earliest.
UEFA will now be forced to show their hand after yesterday’s historic decision – and that will leave Celtic on the brink of being awarded the crown.
