MANCHESTER - Next week's World Cup qualifying games in Europe and beyond are set to be heavily affected by clubs refusing to release players for international duty, COVID-19 quarantines and travel restrictions.
Inter Milan announced on Thursday that all of their players will be pulled out of international duty after two more positive COVID-19 cases at the club.
TikTok will be the global sponsor for the rescheduled Euro 2020 soccer tournament set to begin in June this year, the sport's European governing body UEFA announced on Thursday.
The popular Chinese short video app, the first digital entertainment platform to sponsor a major international tournament for UEFA, also has broadcast sponsorship rights as part of the deal.
Bayern Munich CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has said UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin is weighing up whether to stage the European Championship in one country this year rather than across the continent as planned due to COVID-19 concerns.
However, UEFA responded by saying it was continuing to work on existing plans for 12 countries to host the tournament. The 24-nation event, a major revenue generator for European football's governing body and the national federations, was postponed by 12 months due to the pandemic.
The fate of the rescheduled Euro 2020 soccer tournament will not be decided until March but organizers UEFA are hoping that vaccination efforts will allow them to stick to their original plan for June's pan-European tournament.
The 24-nation, month-long showpiece, a major revenue generator for the continent's soccer governing body UEFA and the national federations across Europe, was postponed by 12 months after last year's COVID-19 outbreak.