The Premier League has been suspended for another month, with a restart date of April 30th agreed on Thursday morning.
The last Premier League game to be played was on March 9 when Leicester beat Aston Villa 4 – 0. On the 12th, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was diagnosed with the coronavirus, leading to the suspension of English football.
The suspension was initially going to last until April 4th, although this was wildly optimistic. Since then, UEFA Euro 2020 has been postponed until 2021, giving the domestic leagues more time to finish their seasons.
Reportedly, European clubs have pledged to complete their domestic seasons by June 30th. The English F.A has agreed to rescind it’s rule that all domestic football must be completed by June 01, allowing that deadline to roll on indefinitely for the 2019/2020 season.
Read: Euro 2020 Postponed, UEFA Banking On Swift End to Pandemic
An F.A statement says that completing the domestic seasons by June 30th will ‘maintain the integrity of each competition’. However it could be argued that rushing to finish the season does nothing to preserve its integrity. What it does is avoid the catastrophe that will ensue when players’ contracts expire on June 30th, before the season is finished.
Assuming it’s possible to resume football on April 30th, that leaves eight and a half weeks to complete nine Premier League games. There are also seven Champions League and Europa League ties to play, and three more rounds of the F.A Cup.
Want to bet on football? See our reviews section to find the best betting markets!
That’s just enough time to finish the season, but not for teams who will go deep in the cup competitions. The integrity of football will not be preserved by scrambling to honour television deals, avoid player contract controversy and satisfy other various sponsors.
What the football community has to come to terms with is that this situation cannot be resolved tidily. Whatever solution is found, there will be court challenges, controversy and a lot of lost money. As a result, football will likely look vastly different when the 2020/2021 season starts, whenever that is.
