Fixing the Football Calendar Due to the Spread of Coronavirus
By Sean Walsh
Games postponed. Games played behind closed doors. Games suspended. Seasons suspended. Seasons potentially cancelled. The coronavirus outbreak is affecting all walks of life.
This is now ultimately a matter of life and death for some people, and so football is secondary. If the world's authorities wish to impose stipulations that affect the season, then they should be trusted with their judgement.
It's depressing. Like, so depressing for so many reasons. We've never experienced anything like this in modern society, football included - the last time the sporting calendar was disrupted in such a way was World War II. It's quite remarkable that it's even taken 70 years for something, anything, to make a lot of sports either unplayable or unwatchable in person.
And it ultimately impacts the livelihoods of everyone involved in football - for the fans reading this who have a vested interest, for those running this website whose jobs centre around it, for the hundreds and thousands of players who play it to earn a wage. The further you go down football pyramids, the harder people will be hit, each coming matchday just helping them get by.
Leagues are being put on hold and maybe scrapped for the season altogether - Italy have taken the most drastic measures in Europe, and other nations are likely to follow - but there is still be hope of football returning to normality.
So this is how 90min would fix the football calendar, subject to further competition changes and travel/attendance restrictions.
The first point of call would be to postpone the European Championship until the summer of 2021 - beginning this with a real bummer, eh. Based on how other sports are dealing with tournaments like this, it would be sensible for UEFA to follow suit. Women's Euro 2021 will be pushed back a few weeks to ensure the two tournaments don't clash.
International breaks will now only last a week until the summer of 2021, so this means the Nations League will have to be shortened or scrapped in favour of friendlies.
Remaining league and continental fixtures in the 2019/20 season will be fulfilled in late May, June and July to fill the void - the summer of club football.
Pre-season tournaments will either have to be scrapped or moved into late August - so long, International Champions Cup - with the 2020/21 season kicking off everywhere in September. The transfer window will now shut later in the month.
To ease fixture congestion, particularly in the build-up to the rearranged European Championship, any unnecessary games and competitions will be cancelled for the 2020/21 season - Carabao Cup, Community Shield, UEFA Super Cup, potentially even domestic cups across Europe.
If all goes to plan (yeah, ironic), then the club season should finish in mid-late May 2021, with the Champions League and Europa League finals scheduled for the following weeks.
The European Championship should be able to kick off in mid-June and end in late July, with clubs and players given another extended summer break (though not as drastic this time) due to the 2022 World Cup taking place in the winter, so there's no need for the 2021/22 season to finish early. Everything's back to normal, kind of.
This is a completely unprecedented situation, and no one really knows what happens next. But cancelling seasons without fulfilling any further fixtures won't just cost money to clubs, but the people that it trickles down to in order to make a living. Football can stop, but it needs to start again somewhere.