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ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE MAY RESUME JUNE 1 AND PLAYED FOR SIX WEEKS BEFORE NEW SEASON

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The Premier League is formulating a new contingency plan to finish the season, which reportedly involves fixtures resuming from June 1 and all matches being played within a timeframe of just six weeks.

The current season has been suspended until at least April 30 due to the rapid spread of coronavirus across the UK and the globe.

The Premier League’s schedule proposal would allow the 2020-2021 campaign to begin on time, on August 8 – four weeks after the end of the previous season. 

It could prevent a financial catastrophe for clubs with mammoth wage bills to pay and no matchday revenue to support them. Lucrative TV deals could also be hit, with no football currently available to broadcast.

According to The Telegraph, the June 1 start date, which is in just 10 weeks’ time, is not set in stone but more of a target for the Premier League, with the Football Association determined for the season to be concluded.

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Ensuring the current season is finished means Liverpool would not be denied their first top-flight title in 30 years.

The FA announced earlier this week that they had bent their own rules to allow the season to be ‘extended indefinitely’ past the previous June 1 deadline.

Following UEFA’s decision to postpone the European Championships by a year, the June 1 start date is one of the best-case scenarios being considered by the Premier League and Football League. 

The Telegraph’s report states that games would be played behind closed doors while the Premier League would require the government to sanction the presence of emergency crews within the ground. 

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, those resources are currently in short supply and the strain on the NHS is only going to increase as the epidemic reaches its peak, which is forecasted to be around June – the time the Premier League are hoping to resume. 

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a nationwide lockdown this week in an unprecedented move that shut down pubs, cafes, restaurants and public spaces across the country. There has been no football played in the UK since March 13.

Under the Premier League’s June 1 plan, they also intend for the FA Cup to be completed. Finishing both competitions would satisfy key broadcasting partners BT Sport and Sky Sports. 

Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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