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Everton: Premier League suspended indefinitely

By Matt Townsend

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - APRIL 03: The official Nike Premier League match ball with a protective mask. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has spread to many countries across the world, claiming over 40,000 lives and infecting hundreds of thousands more. on April 3, 2020 in Manchester, England (Photo by Visionhaus)
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - APRIL 03: The official Nike Premier League match ball with a protective mask. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has spread to many countries across the world, claiming over 40,000 lives and infecting hundreds of thousands more. on April 3, 2020 in Manchester, England (Photo by Visionhaus) /
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Well it wasn’t unexpected, and perhaps inevitably the Premier League has announced that the current season is suspended indefinitely. So Everton and all other English clubs have no idea when or if the season will be resumed.

To be honest I was expecting this, especially once the Premier League pushed back the proposed time of the season’s resumption until 30 April. Everton now have to plan for how the club will move forward and what the financial and other consequences might be.

It’s increasingly likely that the season will have to be truncated or even cancelled as it does seem that it will be very difficult to fully complete the season now.

And indeed the Belgian league has been formally cancelled and existing standings have been confirmed as final. The Belgian FA is waiting to hear that this decision is confirmed by FIFA.

If the world governing body does confirm the decision, then I suspect that other European leagues may well feel they can follow suit. So will and should the Premier League also consider cancelling the current season too?

This is a difficult question to answer. Being mischievous, in some ways it would be good to see the season finished if unlike in Belgium, Liverpool were to be denied their first title in 30 years!

But in all likelihood, if the season were to be terminated now as in Belgium, the existing standings would probably be honoured.

This though is especially problematic for those teams who are sitting in the relegation zone and who would then be automatically relegated to the Championship.

Given the financial implications of such a decision, it’s quite possible that those clubs who were relegated might well consider legal challenges if the Premier League did go down the Belgian route. This would obviously be a major issue for football to have to deal with.

Another option might be to play behind closed doors to complete the season in double-quick time so that games would be played within a few days from each other over the course of say a month to get it done asap.

Anyway whatever eventually happens, this situation is going to create additional problems such as for example if and how the summer transfer window would be conducted and when exactly a new season might begin.

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For Everton, the immediate issue is over finances. The club is obviously in perfectly good shape for the foreseeable future and certainly compared to many individuals in our societies, who are facing a far graver situation.

But the Blues do have a Financial Fair Play issue in the background and there is a pressing need to offload many players who are no longer part of manager Carlo Ancelotti’s plans going forward. And further financial restrictions, this will also affect the likelihood of the Toffees securing new players they want to sign.

There are also questions over whether some of those players might lose transfer market value due to all the uncertainty over the transfer window because of the coronavirus pandemic.

All in all then plenty of questions for the club to sort out over the coming weeks and months until this uncertainty is, or can be, resolved.

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