Coronavirus: "After everything that's happened in Italy, Serie A is meaningless," says Di Livio

Former player Angelo Di Livio is very much against the idea of completing the 2019-20 Serie A season, and has suggested that the current campaign has become meaningless in light of what the country has been through with the coronavirus pandemic.

Italy was one of the first European countries to feel the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and Serie A was brought to a halt in March as regions, particularly those in the north, struggled to stop the virus' spread amid rising death tolls.

League campaign not over in some parts of Europe

While top flights in France, Belgium and the Netherlands have been declared completed, leagues in Italy, Spain and England are intending to follow the Bundesliga's lead in Germany and resume with fixtures behind closed doors. Clubs in Italy returned to training this month and it is thought the league will soon get the green light from the government to resume fixtures in mid-June.

However, former Italy international Di Livio, who won three Serie A titles with Juventus in the 1990s, is vehemently against the concept of restarting the league. "I am against [the restart]," he told Stats Perform News. "I am sorry. This season is meaningless. The situation is rife with too many casualties. What is the point? Who will have the guts to celebrate a title win after all this? Let's face it, guys. They want [football] to keep going behind closed doors? I know exactly what makes football go round and these situations, but I don't agree. I may be wrong, but I look at other things and I say this as a man who lives on and about football only. The situation has been ugly and critical and still in Lombardy nothing is clear yet, is it?"

Italy hit hard by coronavirus pandemic

There have been 231,139 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Italy, where 33,072 people have died with the virus.

Prior to the league being halted, Juventus were one point ahead of Lazio as they bid for a ninth Scudetto in a row.