With a hiatus of five weeks already having passed, the Premier League teams will meet on Friday April 17th to discuss the possibility of either ending the season on 30th June or declaring the current season to be complete by that date.
With the Premier League suggesting earlier in the week that they won’t have a fine of over £300 million applied to them for reneging on games being broadcasted, there has been some suggestion that the lifting of this potential punishment makes it more likely that one of two options will be used as the summer approaches with no apparent end in sight to the cessation of the suspensions put in place by the threat of COVID-19.
A deadline of June 30th would see several contractual situations come to a head, with several Premier League players such as Chelsea wing-forward Willian being out of contract by that time. A rolling contract to finish the season was one suggestion for players in such contract run-off situations, but how long can that rolling situation go on? Would the players need to be paid throughout that time if football has been declared unsafe to play in the current conditions.
Public movement towards the possibility of Premier League football taking place behind closed doors has changed slightly, with the overall feeling that ‘proper football’ would only comprise of fan-attended games looking like more and more of a forlorn hope in recent weeks.