View of the Saint-Denis stadium before the 2006 Champions League final match between Barcelona and Arsenal. /
The governing body of European football moves the great event from Saint Petersburg to Paris and decides that all the matches of the clubs and the teams of Russia and Ukraine will be played on a neutral field
The war caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to have consequences in the world of sport and has forced UEFA to change plans and take the venue for the Champions League final on May 28 from Saint Petersburg. which will be played at the Parisian stadium of Saint-Denis. A punishment for the Kremlin, which unambiguously qualifies it as “shame”, and for the city of Vladimir Putin’s birth, former Leningrad and for two centuries imperial capital, since it will stop entering between 60 and 70 million by staying without hosting the biggest game on the planet at club level.
Drastic and difficult decision for the governing body of European football chaired by the Slovenian Aleksander Ceferin because it also directly affects Gazprom, the gas giant controlled by the Russian government that sponsors Zenit Saint Petersburg, gives the imposing stadium its commercial name and maintains a link commercial with UEFA for about 100 million euros for the remainder of the season and the next two.
The relationship began in 2012 and Gazprom not only sponsors the Champions League but last May extended its sponsorship contract to the 2021 and 2024 European Championships and the League of Nations finals. But there is more, since the Russian businessman Alexander Dyukov is the leader of the Russian Football Union, former president of Zenit, head of the board of directors of Gazprom Neft and a member of the UEFA executive committee since April 2021.
This is the third time in a row that UEFA has changed the venue for the Champions League final. Portugal’s Lisbon and Porto hosted the last two editions, with triumphs by Bayern Munich and Chelsea, but on both occasions Istanbul was originally assigned. The pandemic, however, prevented it from being held in the great Turkish city, if nothing goes wrong in 2023.
The decision to withdraw the grand continental final from this Russian city was a given, as well as forcing all matches with the presence of clubs or teams from Ukraine and Russia to be held on neutral fields until further notice, but there has been some surprise by the place chosen as a substitute.
Wembley was the stage that sounded the loudest in recent hours, but it was ruled out because on the same dates it organizes the promotion phase from the Championship to the Premier League. In the case of the possible Spanish venues, their choice was very difficult as they had three teams still competing in the top continental competition. The Stade de France could be considered more neutral ground because PSG and Lille are the only two French survivors in the tournament.
Macron decisive
However, everything indicates that the figure of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, has been decisive for the election of Paris. In the official statement sent this morning, this body expressed its “thanks and appreciation to the President of the French Republic, his personal support and his commitment so that the most prestigious match in European club football moves to France at a time of crisis. without precedents”.
Together with the French government, UEFA will fully support multi-stakeholder efforts to ensure the rescue of footballers and their families in Ukraine, “who face terrible human suffering, destruction and displacement.”
It will be the third Champions League final to take place on this stage, a good memory for Spanish fans in general, although not so much for Valencia fans. There, Vicente del Bosque’s Real Madrid won the eighth after beating Héctor Cúper’s Levante team by a resounding 3-0 in 2000. Fernando Morientes, Steve McManaman and Raúl González Blanco were the gunners. And six years later, Frank Rijkaard’s Barça defeated Arséne Wenger’s Arsenal 2-1. Sol Campbell put the Londoners ahead, but Samuel Eto’o and Juliano Belletti came from behind late in the game. It was the second European Cup won by the Catalans.
