Premier League clubs involved in August mini-tournaments for the Champions League and Europa League will ask to start next season later than the rest of the division.

Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United and Wolves are still involved in Uefa club competition, although Chelsea will have to overturn a 3-0 first-leg home defeat by Bayern Munich to reach the Champions League last eight.

Fifpro is asking for at least three weeks of complete rest between the 19-20 and 20-21 season.

“Research has shown increased injury rates concurrent with less than six days of rest between matches,” Fifpro said.

It added in a statement: “A large percentage of elite-level footballers were already stretched by the match calendar even before the Covid-19 pandemic, with a lack of recovery time between games and insufficient mental and physical rest between seasons. Now, since the restart we are seeing a first spike in injuries because of insufficient preparation time and congested match schedules. Discussions on match calendar reforms so far have disregarded the responsibility to balance the needs of competition organisers with those of players. Leaving players’ workload management to individual decisions will lead to conflicts with their release for national team games, undue pressure on them to go beyond what is healthy and, ultimately, a decrease in the quality of competitions.”

The quarterfinals, semifinals and final of the Champions League will be played as a single-match, straight knockout tournament between the eight qualifying clubs from August 12th until August 23rd in Lisbon at Benfica's stadium.

The remaining Champions League last-16 second-leg matches, which include Manchester City’s home tie against Real Madrid and Chelsea’s away leg at Bayern Munich, have been scheduled for August 7th and 8th, with Uefa yet to decide whether they will be played at clubs’ home grounds or also in Portugal.

Istanbul was scheduled to host the final, but they will instead host the 2021 edition.

Lisbon has emerged as the favorite to host the final stages of the Champions League.

Ties will be played as single legs, though how the four outstanding last-16 matches should be completed remains open to discussion.

Manchester City are due to play a second leg at home to Real Madrid, leading 2-1. Chelsea are 3-0 down from the home first leg against Bayern Munich, while Juventus are due to host Lyon, who won the first leg 1-0, and Barcelona to host Napoli at 1-1.

UEFA is understood to be targeting a mid-October start for the group stage of the 2020-21 Champions League, traditionally when matchday three would be.

UEFA is considering finishing the 19-20 Champions League with a mini-tournament.

The Champions League has been suspended since March 12th due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

There are four round-of-16 ties that need to be completed along with the remainder of the tournament. Four round-of-16 second-leg ties have yet to be played: Manchester City vs. Real Madrid, Juventus vs. Lyon, Barcelona vs. Napoli and Bayern Munich vs. Chelsea.

The final was scheduled to be held in Istanbul, but Germany and Portugal are the two most likely options to stage the completion of the tournament.