The waiting game
The COVID-19 pandemic has created uncertainty in the sports world, especially in football. The Euros and Copa America have been pushed back to 2021 and the coronavirus has caused most professional soccer league around the world to postpone their seasons. The Belarusian Premier League is still playing, but it it part of the World Association of Professional Football Leagues, otherwise known as the World Leagues Forum. We will probably see the major football leagues resume play until the coronavirus outbreak is contained and the respective countries deem the conditions safe. In the meantime, we have Taiwanese football. Football will eventually return without fans but it is impossible to know when. This is what the governing body of Europe’s top football leagues says about footballs return during the coronavirus pandemic, which led to the shutdown of major sporting events worldwide.
When will football come back?
Many European football leagues were suspended indefinitely as a result of the COVID-19 crisis and Alberto Colombo, deputy general secretary of these leagues, can’t say when any restart takes place but he did explain that the games would have to take place in empty stadiums. “The priority so far has been on focusing on creating conditions to be able to resume competition during the summer should we be able,” Colombo recently told BBC Sport. “You need to resume training and develop your own protocols. There’s no doubt it will be behind closed doors, so the competition organisers have to develop medical protocols, training protocols, match-operation protocols. But, of course, it’s impossible to answer the question ‘when we will be back playing?’ Nobody has these answers.” Per German Football League (DFL) chief executive Christian Seifert, the top two soccer leagues in Germany: the Bundesliga and 2 Bundesliga, want to return to action by the beginning of May. He did admit that the games are likely to be played behind closed doors until 2021.
Bundesliga CEO, Christian Seifert wants the league to restart on May 9th! pic.twitter.com/CRBjObyEtZ
— Stadium Astro (@stadiumastro) April 25, 2020
“We are really well prepared, for sure, to do it” Simon Rolfes, Bayer Leverkusen sporting director recently said. I hope we proceed or improve every day with our corona situation here in Germany and that politicians can say, Okay, now is the time to get back. Hopefully, it will be in the near future. Javier Tebas, president of Liga Nacional de Fútbol Professional, also known as La Liga, has said that they could resume play as early as 28th May, although the teams in Spain have not yet resumed training, like some of the German squads. The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) recently laid out a plan for Serie A players to be tested for coronavirus so that teams can begin training again at the start of May, hoping to have games at the end of that month, also without fans. At a shareholders meeting on April 17th, a number of teams in the Premier League expressed that they want to end the 2019-20 season by July 1st. The Premier League is reluctant to commit to any firm decisions before the government puts a plan in place to lift lockdown measures but teams are wary of the campaign dragging on, understandably so.
Elsewhere
The Eredivisie in The Netherlands became the first top European league called off due to COVID-19. The Dutch football federation (KNVB) called an end to the 2019-20 season on April 24th. No team will be declared champions after Ajax and AZ Alkmaar were tied at the top of the standings. Unfortunately, given the measures (banning large-scale gatherings) taken by the government, it became impossible to finish the 2019-2020 season, the KNVB explained. This will be the first time that the Eredivisie will not have a designated champion in the 64-year history of the competition. The last time this league had no champion crowned was during World War II. They had a winner every year since it was founded in 1956. The decision to finalize the campaign with the table the way it was, was made after UEFA asked the Dutch football federation to maintain the current standings to determine which teams would be awarded spots in next year’s European competitions. Ligue 1 players could resume to training starting May 11th, if lockdown restrictions in France are eased. As far as the format for an MLS return, commissioner Don Garber said everything is on the table. Garber joined Colorado outlet AltitudeTV for an interview on April 23rd and said: “I’d say yes, everything’s on the table, and it should be, it’s one of the benefits of having time to take a step back and perhaps think about life going forward that might be a little different — and in positive ways.