Ireland will finish Euro 2021 qualifying campaign by December

The FAI have confirmed that the Republic of Ireland's Euro 2021 qualifying campaign will be completed by the end of this year.

Vera Pauw's Girls in Green have put themselves in with a great chance of qualifying for a women's senior international tournament for the first time, with just three matches left to play.

The matches, like the finals, had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic but the FAI confirmed the rescheduled dates today.

Ireland lead Group I by one point and will travel to face the team in second place, Germany, for the first time in the campaign on 19 September.

They will then face Ukraine away on 23 October before finishing the campaign on home soil against the Germans on 1 December.

The FAI told OTB Sports that it has yet to be determined whether those games will be played behind closed doors and due to the ever-changing nature of pandemic restrictions in different countries, they will continue to work with UEFA on that matter.

With so many uncertainties regarding the players and their club situations, Ireland assistant manager Eileen Gleeson is happy that, from an international perspective, they now have a target to work towards.

"On the original schedule we would have been preparing to travel to Ukraine next month, but now we know that our games will come in September, October and December," said Gleeson.

"There is a lot of work to do in advance of those games, especially with some of our players' club seasons still undetermined while some at varying stages of returning to play.

"It is important to note that the fight against Covid-19 continues and that while we are excited by the prospect of football returning, we must continue to follow Government & HSE regulations.

"This is our first battle to overcome, then we have turn our focus to our games.

"But we are excited to have these games set and know the dates to work towards.

"We have kept in regular contact with our players, who continue to work on personal fitness programmes, so now it is all about preparing for return to training and ultimately competitive action once we advance further in overcoming Covid-19."

Germany are on four wins out of four and have a game in hand over leaders Ireland, who beat Greece and Montenegro in March.

Both Montenegro and Ukraine (who have faced Germany twice) are yet to get off the mark, with Greece on four points.

The group winners and the three runners-up with the best record against the sides first, third, fourth and fifth in their sections will join hosts England in the final tournament.

The other six runners-up will play off for the remaining three berths in the 16-team finals.

At the end of April, UEFA announced that finals were resscheduled and will now be played in 2022 from 6 July to 31 July while it is planned to use the same venues that were originally proposed to host the event.

The men's Euro 2020 pan-European tournament has been rescheduled for 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic and the UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin said that they do not want the men's tournament to overshadow the women's.