It is increasingly likely that Serie A teams can resume training from May 4, playing on May 31 and ending the season by at most August 3.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte ordered an extension of the lockdown order throughout Italy until May 3, as although the curve has flattened, there are still on average 550 deaths per day.
Some businesses are slowly being allowed to re-open during this period, including bookstores and some factories who can guarantee social distancing.
It is increasingly likely that Serie A teams can resume training from May 4, playing on May 31 and ending the season by at most August 3.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte ordered an extension of the lockdown order throughout Italy until May 3, as although the curve has flattened, there are still on average 550 deaths per day.
Some businesses are slowly being allowed to re-open during this period, including bookstores and some factories who can guarantee social distancing.
La Repubblica has been crunching the numbers and calculating that the aim of resuming Serie A football at the end of May is plausible.
A plan is being worked out by the various clubs and leagues in Italy, with a video conference meeting to discuss the options set for April 21.
If training is allowed to resume – initially in small groups – from May 4, that will give them over three weeks to be ready for the 2019-20 season to kick off all over again by May 31.
By playing every three days, that would allow the Serie A fixture list to be completed by the end of July or at most August 3.
It’d then give players just under a month to rest and train, beginning the 2020-21 season in early September.
There could be another issue, as La Repubblica newspaper points out clubs based in the epicentres of the pandemic – Milan, Inter, Atalanta and Brescia – might need to find neutral turf in which to train and even play.
Naturally, all these games would be behind closed doors, as the idea of playing with a crowd present is still a very long way off.
There had been a suggestion of playing all the games in the Rome area, which has been relatively unaffected by the pandemic, but that was quickly shelved.