All three finals were due to be played in May with Turkey’s Istanbul set to host the men’s Champions League final on May 30, while the Europa League final was due to take place on May 27 at Gdansk in Poland.

Last week UEFA put in place provisional dates of June 24 and 27, but the European football’s governing body has now decided to postpone the Champions League and Europa League finals with no rearranged dates discussed.

The UEFA statement read “As a result of the COVID-19 crisis in Europe, UEFA has today formally taken the decision to postpone the following matches, originally scheduled for May 2020:
UEFA Women’s Champions League Final
UEFA Europa League Final
UEFA Champions League Final
No decision has yet been made on rearranged dates. The working group, established last week as a result of the conference call among the stakeholders of European football, which was chaired by UEFA President, Aleksander Čeferin, will analyse the options available. The group has already begun its examination of the calendar. Announcements will be made in due course.”

The Serie A club have been banned from participating in any of UEFA’s European club competitions next season for failing to comply to UEFA spending regulations in the period between 2015 and 2018.

Milan finished fifth in Serie A last season and will be replaced by sixth-placed Roma, who will go directly into the group stages of the Europa League.

A statement from CAS said: “AC Milan is excluded from participating in the UEFA Club Competitions of the sporting season 2019/2020 as a consequence of the breach of its FFP break-even obligations during the 2015/2016/2017 and the 2016/2017/2018 monitoring periods”.

The Spaniard who scored in Chelsea’s 4 – 1 against Arsenal has now won the Champions League, Premier League, Europa League, World Cup, European Championship, a feat never achieved in history.

Pedro’s Trophies Cabinet

1x World Cup (Spain)

1x European Championship (Spain)

1x Premier League (Chelsea)

1x FA Cup (Chelsea)

1x Europa League (Chelsea)

5x La Liga (Barcelona)

3x Spanish Cup (Barcelona)

6x Spanish Super Cup (Barcelona)

2x FIFA Club World Cup (Barcelona)

5x UEFA Supercup (Barcelona)

The future of the player has been in speculation as the season was coming into an end, with Real Madrid confident of signing him for no more than £88m.

Hazard said “I think for the fans, for the boys, for the manager, for the staff, this is a great trophy to win. I don’t know yet where my future lie. I think it will be decided in a few days. My target today was to win the trophy that’s it. That was the only thing in my mind. I took my decision already. I said that two weeks ago. Now it’s depending on the club. Both clubs. I’m just waiting. We will see. We will know in a couple of days. I think it’s a goodbye. But in football you never know. My dream was to play in the Premier League and I did this for seven years for one of the biggest clubs in the world. Maybe it’s time for a new challenge.”

The goal came in late from Marcos Alonso to secure the 1-0 victory from a very difficult match against Slavia in Prague.

Sarri, however, said that the blues have really improved judging from their performance from earlier in the season, when in difficult moments would “immediately concede.”

He said, “In the past we were not able to suffer in the difficult moments of a match, now we are able to stay in trouble and suffer without conceding.”

A tired Chelsea struggled to find any rhythm for large spells, but grew into the game after Eden Hazard went off the bench into the match just before the hour mark.

Four minutes before match end, Alonso was just at the perfect spot and right on time as he met Willian’s right-wing cross with an incredible header. The second leg of the battle continues on the 18th April at Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea return home victorious, but this was absolutely not a vintage European performance from the winners of the 2013 Europa League.

Willian’s powerful shot hit the crossbar in the first half, but it was until the 59th minute for Rudiger to place their first shot on target, after Hazard came on.

And the Belgian was key as Chelsea pressed on with more intensity and turned serious dangers to the opposition, while Willian’s shot didn’t see the net after a beautiful one-two with Olivier Giroud.

Alonso had a poor game judging by his high standards, but converted the assist with a late run into the area to surprise the home crowd.

Aron Ramsey – who is joining Juventus on a free transfer at the end of the season – put the hosts on the scoreboard as he converted a beautiful pass from Ainsley Maitland-Niles to finish the incredible teamwork.

Lucas Torreira seemed to terrorize the Italians as he contributed to the second goal. After taking a shot at the goal post, Kalidou Koulibaly then scored an own goal as he deflected the shot.

Alex Meret was the wall that Napoli needed to stop more goals from pouring in – that would have been a real blow to the Italians.

Currently in second place in Serie A, Napoli will host the second leg next Thursday at the San Paolo Stadium.

Arsenal’s manager – Emery Unai said, “The first leg was very important to take a good result, we deserved to win, but we know it is going to be very difficult there.

“Their performances at home are usually very strong. We will plan to win the match, but we need to have a lot of respect for them. It is still 50-50. Our challenge is to be competitive away. Sometimes away we lose the spirit we have at home.”

However, Carlo Ancelotti, Napoli’s manager has said that his confidence of his team progressing to the last four is still unwavering. He said,

“The result is difficult to change but we have 90 minutes left.”

Although winning the contest by two goals to nil, the only downside of that performance is that they didn’t steal the victory with more goals to totally kill the tie off.

The Gunners continued pressuring their rivals for a third goal in the last 45 minutes as Maitland-Niles expertly kept denying them a lot of opportunities. But Arsenal’s manager hopes their dominance at Emirates is enough to take them into the semi-finals.