La Liga president Javier Tebas admitted Europe’s major leagues are aiming to resume their campaigns in “the third week of May”, despite plans to restart the Premier League on 30 April.
The coronavirus outbreak has seen every top-tier league on the continent suspended, with the Premier League already enforced to extend its initial return of 4 April as the nation battles to deal with the outbreak of Covid-19.
Players at three separate clubs in Spain have returned positive tests for coronavirus, while Arsenal’s players remain in self-isolation after head coach Mikel Arteta began exhibiting symptoms last week.
Uefa agreed to postpone Euro 2020 by 12 months at a video conference featuring all 55 national member associations on Tuesday in order to give domestic leagues the best possible chance of being completed.
A target date of 30 June was set for completion, however, with nine matches still to be played in the Premier League season, Tebas’s declaration makes that deadline a very tall and unpredictable order as the pandemic continues to escalate.
“[The plan] is to be able to resume all European leagues in mid-May,” Tebas said. “All of them. It will depend on how the pandemic evolves. It could be before, but that is the date we’ve got in mind about being able to resume.
Speaking about the possibility of matches being played behind closed doors to meet those time constraints, Tebas added: “That depends on the health authorities in each country. We will be preparing calendars for more than 30 league competitions. It has to be done together.”
Tebas also attempted to rule out the mooted possibility of a truncated 2020-21 season to ease the threat of fixture congestion. “We don’t want to change any season,” he said. “We haven’t planned for that.
“In this situation, we’re managing scenarios in the short term. If we can’t resolve the short term, we’re going to have more time to approach the long term. We haven’t planned it in our heads either.”
