Soccer leagues plan for games they can only hope to play

Top soccer leagues across Europe are searching for the earliest possible dates to resume games if the coronavirus pandemic allows.

They must make a plan, after governing body UEFA this week postponed its European Championship to 2021 to give clubs a chance to finish their seasons.

Italy's Serie A said it hopes to play on May 3. Romania's top-tier league says not before May 16. In Sweden, clubs asked to move their opening day back to June from April 3.

On Thursday, the English Premier League's 20 clubs will discuss options to restart or resolve the most valuable domestic competition in world soccer.

Still, any forward planning seems a win for hope over expectation during the near-total shutdown that threatens the finances of some leagues and hundreds of clubs.

"You have no idea if it is going to be possible to play football at the end of May or the middle of June or even afterwards," Lars-Christer Olsson, chairman of the 29-nation European Leagues group, told The Associated Press in an interview.

"Liquidity is the major problem now," Olsson, a former UEFA general secretary, said in a telephone interview from Sweden.

Typically, "a lot of income is coming at the final phase of the season when you have full stadiums."
"You have no gate receipts," Olsson said of the shutdown, "and you have difficulties with your media partners who say, 'We can't pay you if we don't have matches to show'."
Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said last week games must be played even without fans due to "the big outstanding TV payments to the clubs."
"They are playing an important role in society even if they are a smaller club."