Football and Coronavirus: When Football Will Restart Again?
Since March football has been put on pause because of the COVID-19 outbreak and since then we haven’t seen our favourite sport in action. I guess none of us has experienced such a thing before and the lack of football has undoubtedly impact on our lives. But the big question here is: When Football Will Restart Again?
Football, without doubt, will return behind closed doors but no one knows when this will happen.
The deputy general of European Leagues, Alberto Colombo earlier said that the suspension of the season due to the COVID-19 pandemic was “a huge crisis.”
He also mentioned that: “The vast majority of the association’s members, which includes the Premier League and the English Football League, are prioritising a return to action”.
He also admitted that “a small number” of countries, including Belgium, are now considering cancelling their campaigns.
As to today’s date, there is no clear idea when the Premier League will resume even after couple meetings with all clubs representatives bare in mind there is still has nine rounds of fixtures to play.
However last week there was a bright light at the end of the tunnel when German clubs became the first in Europe to return to training, although with precautionary measures taken in place, with talks of a resumption as soon as May.
Despite that fact, Colombo has urged caution, by adding: ” The priority so far has been on focusing on creating conditions to be able to resume competition during the summer should we be able”.
He continues: ” You need to resume training and develop your own protocols. There’s no doubt it will be behind close 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 the answer.
“Ultimately, we all know the governments of the countries are the ones in charge of lifting the various restrictions that apply to sport.”
So far, Germany has carried out more diagnostic swab test so they can establish whether an individual is infected with the virus and that put them at first place from the rest of the major European countries.
Also, the Italian Football Federation (IFF) hopes to begin testing players for the virus at the beginning of May, in preparation for the season to resume.
Colombo continues: “There is no doubt that players’ health comes first, and also the health of all those involved in matches – staff of clubs, media, everyone has to be safe”.
“Doing testing is an important part of these health measures. But at the moment there is not a common position in every country”.
With the last sentence, Colombo gives an example with Belgium’s Pro-League.
Who has annoyed the European football governing body UEFA, by cancelling its season due to health concerns and financial issues, albeit there will be a meeting on 24 April when they will take a final decision.
Reflecting on that Colombo adds: “We know there are other leagues, but really a small number, that are having these considerations.
” The vast majority has been focusing 100% on the resumption of their competitions. One of the reasons for us to maintain this as a priority is to safeguard the integrity of the competitions.
” And, of course, we have to avoid jeopardising the excellent work and cooperation we have developed with UEFA during the past weeks.”
By judging what Colombo said the only thing, we can do it’s just to hope leagues to be resume as soon as possible but having in mind not to put anyone at risk. At the end of the day, our health comes in the first place.
Petar Leykov
