Thu Apr 30, 2020 5:49 pm
Talk Sport
Thursday 29th April 2020
English Football League players below the Championship have reportedly been told the 2019/20 season will not be finished because of problems concerning coronavirus testing.
The Premier League could return as early as June 8 with football chiefs willing to spend around £4million on 26,000 COVID-19 testing kits as part of their plan.
Players will be tested twice to ensure safety as they remain committed to fulfilling the remaining 92 fixtures of the campaign.
However, this does not appear to be the case lower down the English football pyramid.
The Daily Mail report that EFL players below the Championship have been told that one of the main problems stopping games resuming is the number of coronavirus tests that would be needed.
The report also says there is little expectation that any football will be played in June despite plans for clubs to resume training next month.
This came as a result of an EFL board meeting on Wednesday.
Most Championship clubs are said to be committed to finding a way of resolving the season but support further down the pyramid is waning.
If the season were to end then there would be debate on how to determine promotion and relegation.
One of the options is possibly using a ‘sporting merit’ system with points per game a viable choice to be used.
One suggesting is that clubs in the automatic promotion places would go up with no teams going down. This would need agreement from the Premier League.
There are also concerns about player contracts with a number of deals ending in June, but there is a possibility of the season running into July, or even August and beyond.