Scottish clubs in Europe will lose out on potentially lucrative home gates
- Published
More than 15,000 fans were at Pittodrie for Aberdeen's Europa League qualifying defeat by Croatia's Rijeka last August
Scotland's four clubs in Europe will play their 2020-21 qualifying rounds as single-leg ties behind closed doors.
Celtic in the Champions League and Rangers, Aberdeen and Motherwell in the Europa League could be drawn at home or away but there will be no fans present.
While it potentially denies clubs gate receipts from hosting lucrative ties in the qualifiers, Uefa says the decision is "for reasons of sporting fairness".
The remaining European ties from season 2019-20 are also closed to fans.
The draw for those Champions League and Europa League matches will be made at Uefa's headquarters in Nyon on Friday.
While Uefa said it would "monitor the evolution of the situation and advise on any full or partial lifting of restrictions at the appropriate time", in relation to the qualifying rounds for the forthcoming season it specifically stated that the closed stadium policy would apply "in any case and irrespective of any future decision".
In addition, in light of the Covid-19 protocols around safely hosting matches, Uefa has decided to delay by one year its plan to operate Video Assistant Referee (VAR) in the Europa League group stage.
It will be introduced instead for that stage of the competition in season 2021-22.
However, Uefa will continue to use VAR for the remaining games of the 2019-20 Europa League and in the 2020-21 competition from the last 32 onwards.