Izuchukwu Okosi
Executives from the 20 Premier League clubs on Monday rose from their emergency meeting and agreed that the festive schedule will continue without a circuit breaker amid the Coronavirus outbreaks in most of the clubs.
Most of the clubs have depleted squads and could not honour their last weekend’s matches with only four games going on and all involving the top four teams in the table, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal with City and Arsenal winning their contests against Newcastle United and Leeds United while Liverpool and Chelsea were held to draws by Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhapton Wanderers.
The Premier League has consequently pushed to continue its schedule “where safe to do so” and clubs were advised that they should be prepared to play if they have 13 available players, including a goalkeeper.
A majority of clubs were in favour of playing on and no options went to a vote.
But talks are underway over scrapping the FA Cup third and fourth-round replays and reducing the EFL Cup semi-finals to one leg as a one-off measures to ease fixture congestion in the New Year.
Clubs discussed whether to suspend the round of matches on Boxing Day and December 27, or Gameweek 20, which starts on 28 December.
The seven top-flight clubs still involved in the Carabao Cup are set to play on December 22 and 23, with another round of League games starting on New Year’s Day.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
