Matching the competitions of a country is not easy. You have to attend to a lot of events and occurrences that are not part of football so as not to overlap and even then you often have to review it. Well, in international competitions, it is even more complicated. Coordinating the calendars of all the countries is a whole process that you have to go through at the beginning of the season to leave everything well prepared. The real problem comes when, due to some external setback, the date or venue of the final has to be changed so that the tournament can be played. Below we show you some of the most notorious examples of finals that had to change their venue:
This is the first edition of the two that have been postponed due to COVID-19. The honor of awarding the final was given to Istanbul, but given the pandemic, FIFA decided to change the format and make a competition behind closed doors from the point where it got stuck and it was played in Lisbon.
For the second consecutive year, the venue for the Champions League final had to be moved. Istanbul was once again the venue for the final but as the two teams that arrived were English and Turkey was on England’s red list to travel, it was decided to move to Porto so that 6,000 fans from each team could attend.
In this case, the change was no longer due to the pandemic, but rather due to the war that we are experiencing in Europe. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has left many sanctions for the Russians and one of them is in the competitive field, so Saint Petersburg could not be the venue and it was changed to Paris.
In this case, the change in thirst was more due to a paperwork issue. The Ciudad de la Educación Stadium did not manage to process the papers in time for the club world cup and it was decided to change the venue to the Khalifa International Stadium. Since they are both in the same country, the inconvenience was minimal.
Boca Juniors and River Plate reached a historic final between two of the biggest rivals in the world of football, but the final could not be played at the Monumental and an alternative had to be found. In this case, the Santiago Bernabéu was the venue chosen and a historic final was held in Madrid.
Another competition that changes venues two years in a row. Chile took the headquarters for this season but due to “circumstances of greater order and public order” it had to be moved to Lima, Peru.
The Brazilian Football Confederation asked to change the venue for the South American Cup final because there were general elections that same weekend and the country was going to collapse. It was going to be played in Brasilia, but in the end it was changed to the Mario Alberto Kempes Stadium in Córdoba.
In this case, Indonesia was organizing the U-20 World Cup but a country official objected to Israel being present at the competition and FIFA has decided to withdraw the country’s headquarters. At the moment it is not known where it will finally be played.
