UEFA in 2019 – Part 2: Leading football forward
Saturday, December 28, 2019
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In the second part of our review of 2019, we look back at the highlights from July to December.
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- UEFA EURO 2020 finals take shape
- A new look awaits the UEFA Women’s Champions League
- Van Dijk, Bronze and Cantona win prestigious UEFA awards
- Fifteen years of UEFA HatTrick
- Stéphanie Frappart becomes the first female referee to take charge of a major European men's showpiece occasion at the UEFA Super Cup
JULY
UEFA's HatTrick assistance programme celebrates 15 years of changing the football landscape in national associations across Europe. By 2024, the HatTrick programme will have made available a remarkable €2.6bn in support of UEFA’s 55 member associations.
AUGUST
A historic moment as French female referee Stéphanie Frappart is appointed to take charge of the UEFA Super Cup match between Liverpool and Chelsea in Istanbul.
French icon Eric Cantona receives the 2019 UEFA President's Award at the UEFA Champions League group stage draw in Monaco.
Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk and England’s Lucy Bronze are voted UEFA Men’s and Women's Player of the Year 2018/19 respectively.
Belgian Eden Hazard is voted 2018/19 UEFA Europa League Player of the Season for his exploits with title-winners Chelsea.
German Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund and Burnley FC supporter Scott Cunliffe are named as winners of the 2019 UEFA #EqualGame Award.
SEPTEMBER
It’s revealed that the UEFA Champions League final has broken a record of over 1 billion social media interactions, cementing its place as the world's biggest annual sporting event.
UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin launches UEFA's Football in Schools programme at an event in Slovenia.
UEFA says it will plant 600,000 trees across the 12 UEFA EURO 2020 host countries and invest in renewable energy projects to offset fans’ and UEFA carbon emissions from travel to matches.
The UEFA Executive Committee approves a new league structure for the UEFA Nations League from the 2020/21 edition – one of a series of important decisions at its meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
England, Germany, Poland, Norway and Scotland are the gold winners in the 2019 UEFA Grassroots Awards.
OCTOBER
UEFA kicks off an awareness campaign about concussion in football, designed to educate players, coaches, referees, doctors and the general public.
European clubs, national teams and their players unite with UEFA and the Fare network to promote diversity, inclusion and accessibility in football, and back the drive to rid the game of discrimination.
NOVEMBER
Leading European club coaches meet UEFA at the annual UEFA Elite Club Coaches Forum in Nyon.
The UEFA Foundation for Children announces 42 new projects to reinforce its work on behalf of thousands of children across the world.
DECEMBER
The UEFA EURO 2020 finals – to be staged across Europe next summer to celebrate the EURO’s 60th anniversary – move a step closer with a glittering draw ceremony in one of the tournament’s 12 host cities, Bucharest.
UEFA announces a new format – including a 16-team group stage - for the UEFA Women's Champions League from 2021/22 – one of several key UEFA Executive Committee decisions at its meeting in Nyon.