Sheffield United 'to receive welcome cash boost' after UEFA advance £60m Euro 2020 payments

John Fleck was set to take part in Scotland's Euro 2020 qualifying play-off

UEFA have committed to pay over £60m, to almost 700 clubs from all its 55 member associations. Around £15m of that will be divided by clubs who have players involved in the scheduled Euro 2020 play-offs, which were postponed in an attempt to limit the spread of coronavirus.

Several members of United's squad were preparing for key play-offs. Enda Stevens, John Egan and David McGoldrick would have featured for the Republic of Ireland in their first play-off against Slovakia, while Oli McBurnie and John Fleck would likely have been called-up by Scotland to face Israel.

Victory in that game could have pitted McBurnie and Fleck against Sander Berge's Norway in the play-off final. Norway were set to face Serbia in Oslo in their own play-off semi-final.

Mo Besic's Bosnia and Herzegovina are also in the play-offs, while fellow loanee Dean Henderson looked set to be included in Gareth Southgate's England squad for the finals, which have been postponed until 2021.

A UEFA statement today read: "€50m will go to clubs having released players for the 39 national teams not involved in the European Qualifiers play-offs."€17.7m will go to clubs having released players for the 16 national teams taking part in the European Qualifiers play-offs (not including payments for the play-off matches, which will be paid on completion of the play-offs).

"The balance of €2.7m - related to players released for the play-offs - will be distributed upon completion of these play-off matches in the autumn.

"For UEFA EURO 2020, a minimum of €200 million is available for distribution to clubs as agreed in the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between UEFA and the ECA, which was renewed in 2019.

"Based on the payment distribution mechanism approved by the UEFA Executive Committee, €70m will be distributed among those clubs which released players for the European Qualifiers and the UEFA Nations League, and the remaining €130m will be distributed among those clubs releasing players for UEFA EURO 2020."

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