Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The English Premier League (EPL) 2019/2020 season is set to restart on June 17, 2020.
The British domestic football league gave the greenlight to return under the Project Restart at a shareholders meeting.
The 20 EPL clubs discussed the resumption plan, which is subject to government approval, at Thursday’s meeting on and Business Post understands that they all agreed in principle.
The first game back is expected to be on June 17 with Aston Villa versus Sheffield United and Manchester City versus Arsenal before a full fixture list is played on the weekend of June 19-21.
There are 92 matches still to play, and the first to take place will be those the four teams involved have in hand.
The Premier League was suspended on March 13 due to COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this week, the clubs unanimously voted to resume contact training.
It comes after the German Bundesliga resumed with games being played behind closed doors. The LaLiga will resume from June 8.
Liverpool is currently 25 points clear at the top of the table and are on their way to winning their first title since 1990.
They are followed by Manchester City in second place. Tottenham, Chelsea, and Manchester United are also in a tough race for the top four while Bournemouth, Aston Villa and Norwich City sit in the relegation places.
Earlier this week, the Premier League said it had carried out tests on 1,008 players and staff, reporting that four were positive across three different clubs. Since testing began on May 17, a total of 2,752 tests have been carried out and 12 returned positive.
In the next round of testing, the number of tests available to each club will increase from 50 to 60. The UK government launched on Thursday its own nationwide test-and-trace system, which will also require people to self-isolate even if they don’t have any symptoms of COVID-19, as the country looks to emerge from lockdown.
