The Coronavirus has turned the world upside down with many lockdowns all over the world as people are hit the hardest, and are not quite sure what the immediate future holds. For football fans the lockdown has seemed strange, we aren’t used to have no football. Even when the season ends, pre-season friendlies and tournaments or major summer competitions take the place. Literally we have football 365 days a year.
Obviously lives and the safety of people matter more than sport, but there will always be the burning question for sports fans and football ones, when will it all return?
Whilst we can’t 100% tell the future we can certainly look at countries that were hit with the virus before England and take from this an example. The virus started in Wuhan, China and it isn’t important when the first cases were recorded which is believed to have been as early as December, but when the area went into lockdown. The lockdown happened on January 23rd and naturally everything was cancelled and the lockdown went on for 2 months.
In England the lockdown happened roughly two months after Wuhan with the natural delay. The UK government said that they believe the lockdown should be applied for at least two months last week,and that would be in line with Wuhan who are just about getting back to having a normal way of life.
If we take into account the 2 months that would mean that the lockdown in England should be lifted around May 25th. There will have to be an easing period, but we could expect traffic flowing again and people returning to work within 10 days to 2 weeks of the lockdown being lifted. As for football the country’s far and away biggest sport we can expect at least another week on top of the lockdown being lifted.
With that being said the Premier League could well return to action on June 13th which is a Saturday. Of course there would still need to be caution and we could expect at least the first three games to be played behind closed doors. In that time Liverpool could well win the league, and the sad reality is that they could do so with no fans.
As for finishing the season, there was two months left, but with some games being played in midweek it would be possible, one would think, to have the season finished by the beginning of August. The next season would then only have to be delayed by a month and could start in mid September, possibly after the first round of Champions Leagues are played.
Of course many talks will have to take place, namely for players’ contracts so many are on course to expire on June 30th, and that would all have to be agreed. Getting players back out on the pitch too will be needed but one would expect that the virus will not be a threat by then.
It’s an interesting idea, but with thought having the league returning in mid June could well happen, just looking at how the world has been dealing with the virus.
Let’s hope the virus can be vanquished quickly and we can return to normality and start watching our favourite sports once more.
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