2020 Champions League Football Final to be Hosted in Istanbul

Istanbul’s Ataturk Stadium will be hosting the Champions League final that is scheduled to happen in 2020. UEFA Executive Committee made an announcement about the same after their meeting in Kiev. The Turkish city, in 2005 had hosted the famous comeback game of Liverpool vs AC Milan where the former had the last laugh. The total seating capacity of the stadium is 76000.

The committee further announced that Vienna's Austria Arena is set to welcome the 2020 Women's Champions League. UEFA committee has been under immense pressure of hosting the finals in the cities that have good hotels and airport infrastructure in place. It was Liverpool who complained that their fans faced spiralling accommodation and travel costs in the city of Kiev which will host Champions League Final on May 27, 2018.

They just don’t have the airport infrastructure and the hotel capacity to cope with an event of this size and there isn’t another major city within real hitting distance of it,” Liverpool chief executive Peter Moore told the Liverpool Echo newspaper. “It’s not only affected Liverpool fans but Real Madrid fans too. There will be lessons learned from this. Rest assured, I’ve raised this at the highest levels of UEFA.”

The 2019 Champions League final is scheduled to take place at Atletico Madrid's Wanda Metropolitano in Madrid. The UEFA committee in Kiev also approved the schedule for Euro 2020. As per the press release, the Turkish Football Federation is planning to redevelop the stadium for their Euro 2024 bid, increasing the capacity to 92,208 and removing the athletics track, though it is unlikely this work will be done in time for 2020 final.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 24, 2018 11:46 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).