Gallagher Premiership rugby games could be played midweek and through the summer to fit postponed games in according to league CEO Darren Childs.
The message from Premiership Rugby Limited's chief executive is in stark contrast to the one which followed just hours later from Prime Minster Boris Johnson who effectively put the country into a state of lockdown on Monday night to prevent the spread of coronavirus, with the police able to enforce the rules restricting public gatherings.
The Gallagher Premiership is currently into the second week of a five week shutdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in England with the situation escalating.
Despite that, speaking to BBC Sport, Childs said: “Our number one priority is to find a way to play."
“We want to get this season finished, and if that means playing over the summer, then we will do that, as long as it is safe to do so. We won't take any risks about anyone's health and welfare.
"Rugby does make an impact on medical staff and hospitals because of the nature of it, and that is an absolute priority for us to make sure we are not taking any of those resources away.“
With a shutdown of all professional sport in the UK since March 15 there are gaping holes in the programming for sports broadcasters like BT Sport and Sky Sports with fee paying fans understandably unhappy to still be paying out for re-runs.
The Gallagher Premiership is shown exclusively on BT Sport in the UK and payments from the tv company are made monthly. With nothing to show the payments which make up the majority of the central funding to the clubs from Premiership Rugby Limited, which runs the league, has dried up.
In response nearly every club in the Premiership, including Bristol Bears and Bath Rugby, have asked their players to take 25 percent pay cuts while the shutdown continues.
As things stand the government rules on large scale gatherings, and now gathering in groups more than two outside of your own household for the next three weeks will likely prevent the restart of play - however rugby is not scheduled to resume until April 24 when Bristol are meant to travel to Worcester Warriors on the Friday night.
Childs said: “We are all working to try and hopefully be the first sport back on television, whether that is in a closed stadium or an open stadium.
"There is no reason why we couldn't play four games over a weekend in a single stadium.
"To be able to concentrate things in one area, certainly if it is a closed-door game, means we can be sensible about trying to reduce the impact on the TV operations, the crews and the filming by compressing it into one venue."
Childs confirmed Premiership Rugby is reviewing the proposed 24 April restart date every day with nine rounds of the regular season remaining. He said safety to all involved with be the deciding factor.
He added: "All options are on the table right now, but our absolute preference and the one we are working towards is playing the season out as much as we can over those summer months.
"We are looking at all player-welfare issues in relation to playing midweek games.
"What we don't want to do is to compress it so much that it creates player-welfare issues, and we just wouldn't do that.
"We do think we have got some good ideas about how maybe we could stack games over weekends.
"Our priority is the Premiership and getting the elite game going as soon as we can."
