Will French soccer pay for its excess of prudence? While the professional soccer League has recorded the end of the Ligue 1 in France following the announcement of the deconfinement plan by the Prime Minister, France’s European neighbors are getting ready to resume competitions as soon as possible. Then, Portugal, Switzerland, Turkey have already decided to resume championship on different dates and in-cameras, of course. Other main domestic competitions, such as the British Premiere League or the Spanish Liga and the Italian Series A remain sustained and not stopped like in France.
In Germany, the Bundesliga will resume as well. Chancellor Angela Merkel has assessed the health situation “satisfactory” in order to resume the first division championship from May 15th. Bayern-Munich president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, interviewed by the AFP, has also said this was an “important and wonderful signal for the Bundesliga”, saying it was “important that the Bundesliga is decided on the pitch and not off the pitch like in the Netherlands or France”. Yet, games will be held without an audience and all Ligue salaries are encouraged to thoroughly uphold barrier gestures in order to avoid a second contamination wave.
Same call in Portugal. As the country remains quite safe from the epidemic without only about one thousand deaths, it has been decided to restart the championship in May, enabling to finish the last ten days of the season 2019-2020 that have not been played yet. Portuguese Federation president Fernando Gomes has moderated his comments saying that “the future of [soccer] is not guaranteed”. Amid the threat of the virus, prudence and calm for Croatia that announced to restart on June 6th, a week before the Turkish championship said to resume on June 12th. As a consequence, France would be in a difficult position as games are not expected to return before early August.
