The world of football has been plunged into chaos as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.On Friday the Premier League announced that it was suspending games until April 3 at the earliest.It follows decisions in Italy and Spain to halt play as the world battles against the ongoing crisis.Of course, this presents a scheduling problem with doubts emerging over whether certain competitions will even be completed.Next week’s Champions League and Europa League fixtures have been postponed and UEFA will have to cancel both tournaments if they cannot find a reasonable space to fit games in.Football’s governing bodies will be eager to solve the issue and one football fan has come up with an idea that many others are getting behind.Steve Price, @price_sm on Twitter, has tweaked the calendar to allow the current seasons to finish and the European Championship to still go ahead.
He suggests giving until the end of November 2020 for club competitions to finish and moving the Euros to coincide with next year’s Africa Cup of Nations, which will be staged between January and February.
The new domestic season would then start in March 2021 and finish in November before a winter break.
The following domestic campaign would then start in January 2022 and conclude in October 2022.
There would then be a break before the 2022 Qatar World Cup begins in November 2022.
Here’s how the football calendar would look in every season until 2023/2024…
Of course there would be logistical hurdles such as player contracts and transfer windows, but many are on board with Steve’s idea and think it could work.
Giving until November would likely allow domestic and European competitions to finish, although that depends on how the battle against coronavirus goes.
In the United Kingdom, measures are being taken to delay the peak of the outbreak until the summer.