Italian football chiefs on Thursday announced that the end of the Serie A season will be pushed back from June 30 to August 2 to finish the season suspended amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Federation
president Gabriele Gravina said the FIGC would “adopt a resolution in the
coming hours to postpone the end of the 2019/2020 sports season to August 2”.
No sport has been
played in Italy since March 9 as the country grapples with the COVID-19 crisis
which has killed over 25,000 people.
“The world of
football is working incessantly and responsibly to find concrete and
sustainable solutions to the crisis generated by Covid-19 including those
necessary and indispensable to safeguard 2020-21 competitions,” Gravina said.
Serie A’s 20 clubs
on Tuesday voted unanimously to complete the league season, but the final
decision will be down to the Italian government.
The federation also
hopes clubs can start training again from May 4, the date on which the
government plans to start easing the containment measures.
In Germany, the
Bundesliga is preparing to resume without spectators on May 9, making it the
first major European league back in action, but the final go-ahead rests with
political leaders.
European football’s
governing body UEFA on Thursday left the door open for leagues to bring an
early end to their seasons and said qualification for the next Champions League
should be “based on sporting merit”.
UEFA did not
however provide a detailed calendar for the resumption of competitions.
One of the possible
scenarios would be for national league and cup competitions to conclude in
early August with the latter stages of this season’s Champions League and
Europa League to be played later in the month.
