Coronavirus: Restart French league in September and have calendar-year seasons, proposes Lyon president Aulas
It is hoped that Ligue 1 will resume matches in June but Olympique Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas would be in favour of delaying it until September.
Olympique Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas has voiced his support for a proposal to restart the French league season later than planned in September and switch to a calendar-year format.
Major sport across the globe has been suspended since March due to the coronavirus pandemic, though the German Bundesliga hopes to resume on 9 May and Ligue 1 is targeting a return on 17 June. Aulas is not worried about any potential further delays, as long as the 2019-20 campaign is played to completion. He thinks playing the remaining games from September and beginning the new season at the start of 2021 is a sensible idea, given that the 2022 World Cup is scheduled to take place across November and December of that year.
Proposal to start new Ligue 1 season in January 2021
"I have fears we will not be able to resume the season," Aulas told L'Equipe. "And that is why we should perhaps study another scenario that [Nice president] Jean-Pierre Rivere and Nasser [Al-Khelaifi, Paris Saint-Germain president] spoke about, where we would shift the end of the 2019-20 season to the end of the calendar year and we would resume the new season at the start of 2021. This is one of the scenarios that interests FIFA with the World Cup in Qatar. Anything that can allow us to finish competitions is fine with me."
UEFA decision expected this week
Clarity on how European football can get back up and running is expected to be provided this week with UEFA holding a meeting with its 55 member associations on Tuesday, followed be a convening of its executive committee on Thursday.