On Monday, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi called for the EURO 2020 final to be shifted out of London because of the extent of the spread of the Delta variant.
Draghi told reporters in Berlin during a joint papers interview with Chancellor Angela Merkel that he wants “to guarantee that the final of the European championship does not take place in a land where contagions are proliferating.”
Britain received more than 10,630 new COVID-19 cases on Monday. New cases have been steadily increasing since late May after almost seven weeks of the daily tally of new conditions living under 3,000.
The surge is being blamed on the scope of the Delta variant which public health officials say now estimates for more than 90% of new infections in the UK. The variant, which first started in India, is estimated to be up to 60% more transmissible than the first strain.
The flare-up of diseases prompted Prime Minister Boris Johnson to postpone lifting the left constraints in England — planned for June 21 — by another four weeks.
Johnson hinted last week that he would be open to working key matches of the EURO 2020 out of the country, saying that he prioritises “public health” over the championship.
Sources have confirmed to AFP that UEFA — Europe’s ruling body for football — is contemplating moving the semi-finals and final out of Wembley to Budapest, the only capital city that has not imposed any capacity in its stadium for this Euro. The British government is currently representing a 50% limit for those competitions.
German Chancelor Anegela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron had called Friday for attention in unions in the face of the explosion of the highly infectious variant Delta.