When Will Football Return? We had news this past week with rumours that UEFA were planning to play the Champions League Final at the end of August. For that to happen, domestic leagues will have to be back in action long before that.
Clearly every country is in a different position as to when football can return. With this in mind, we’ve taken a look around the world to see when the action is rumoured to return.
🏴 England
News broke this week from Sky Sports that the Premier League is unlikely to start before the 8th of June. In a meeting on Friday the 17th of April, Premier League clubs expressed they still want to finish the season by the 30th of June – that would mean a huge gap to the European Finals should English clubs make it that far.
The Premier League have to wait until the government say it is safe to play football but they believe that the remaining games can be played in a five week window when we return. We have heard stories of teams setting up base camps like we see at World Cups and such, but the bottom line is the games will almost certainly take place behind closed doors.
The next meeting is on May 1, but as of now, it looks like June 8th is the earliest possible start date.
🇩🇪 Germany
Germany have handled the crisis best in Europe and we heard news last week that they are on course to re-start the Bundesliga in May and they are hoping to finish the season towards the end of June. That would leave a big gap again with what UEFA are saying, however given the situation in Germany it now looks likely that we’ll see the Bundesliga return sometime in May.
🇮🇹 Italy
Italy were the hardest hit to begin with Europe, and it could be a very long time before we see crowds at Serie A games. At the moment, the latest word is that Serie A officials are hoping for the teams to start training again in May with a view to re-starting the league at the end of May or early June. We might not see crowds at the games until 2021.
🇪🇸 Spain
Spain were very badly hit, much like Italy, and we can expect games behind closed doors for a long time. La Liga officials have been working off plans to re-start the league on 28 May, 6 June or 28 June. At the moment, they “think they can finish in August” but as we all know, things change quickly. June seems the likely option.
🇫🇷 France
We haven’t heard much official news from France, however L’Equipe have been reporting that we could see Ligue 1 action starting on the 17th of June. It’s been reported that the idea is for teams to play every three days to finish the season and the games will take place behind closed doors.
