European Leagues: Impossible to know when football will return

There's no doubt that football will ultimately return and when it does, the matches will be played behind closed doors. But a body that represents Europe's top football leagues said it is "impossible" to predict when that will happen.

The deputy general secretary of European Leagues, Alberto Colombo, claimed that the suspension of the current season due to the coronavirus pandemic is "a huge crisis" that football is facing.

He admitted that the majority of the association's members, including the Premier League, are eager a return to action as quickly as possible.

However, he also admitted that some countries such as Belgium, are considering the cancellation of their campaigns this season.

It has been understood that the Premier League clubs will meet on Friday to discuss the current situation. Colombo said that it is highly unlikely that the season could be resumed any time soon, with nine rounds of fixtures still to be played.

Last week, German clubs became the first Europeans to resume their training with precautionary measures in place. There have been talks of resuming the Bundesliga season as early as May. However, that seems to be too optimistic and with no guaranteed decision.

Colombo said, "The priority so far has been on focusing on creating conditions to be able to resume competition during the summer should we be able. You need to resume training and develop your own protocols. There's no doubt it will be behind closed doors, so the competition organisers have to develop medical protocols, training protocols, match-operation protocols."

He also said that the decision to lift various restrictions ultimately depends on the governments of the respective countries.

BBC reports that Germany has carried out more diagnostic swab tests as compared to other major European countries to figure out if an individual is infected with the coronavirus.

Reportedly, the Italian Football Federation is hoping to begin mass testing players at the start of May.

Among all the European countries, Spain and Italy are the worst affected by the pandemic. While over 182,000 coronavirus positive cases have been registered in Spain, Italy recorded over 165,000 cases. The former has seen over 19,000 deaths related to COVID-19, while the home of Serie A recorded over 21,500 deaths because of the virus.