The Italian government will allow top athletes to resume training in May, the Prime Minister announced on Sunday, but did not decide on the date for a possible resumption of the Italian football championship.
As of May 4, "training will be allowed, but without assembly and in camera" for individual sports, said Giuseppe Conte during an address intended to detail his plan to restart the country. However, for team sports, this "green light" will not be given until May 18, he added. A decision to resume competitions interrupted by the confinement of the country, however, was not taken.
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Regarding the Italian football championship, stopped since March 9, Mr. Conte simply indicated that Serie A "will not resume until security conditions are met".
A national passion in Italy, professional football has repeatedly repeated its desire to end the current season. Thursday, the federation reaffirmed its determination to resume competition and its desire to postpone "until August 2 the end of the 2019-2020 sports season".
Italians mostly opposed to Serie A resumption
But according to a poll released Sunday by the AGI agency, two out of three Italians are hostile to a resumption of football competitions because of the health situation in this country which is one of the hardest hit in the world by the pandemic, with nearly 27,000 dead. One in two remains hostile to it even if it had to be done behind closed doors. And this majority opposition also concerns football supporters.
This Thursday, the president of the German League Christian Seifert indicated that the Bundesliga, in the stop since mid-March, was "ready" to resume on May 9, if the German authorities gave the green light.
No “white season” for UEFA
UEFA, for its part, has announced that places in European competitions should be allocated to "sporting merit" , thus cutting short the scenario of a "white season" which would have seen the clubs having participated in the 2019 Champions League -2020 automatically renewed for the next edition.
The European confederation continues to push to "complete the national competitions currently suspended".
