The A-League football competition, which was suspended in March because of the coronavirus outbreak, will resume in mid-July providing an agreement can be reached with broadcasters.
Phoenix fans Photo: Photosport
The plan for the completion of the last six rounds of the regular season and the championship playoffs follows the easing of social restrictions in Australia with the country having been largely successful in containing Covid-19.
"We are committed to delivering the completion of the A-League 2019-20 season and have agreed a comprehensive plan with the clubs and the (players' union)," FFA chief executive James Johnson said in a statement.
"Ideally mid-June will see players return to training, allowing them to reach the required elite level of fitness for competitive matches to commence by mid-July, and for the A-League Finals Series to be completed by mid-August."
Local media has reported that agreement with broadcaster Fox Sports was the main sticking point in announcing a resumption of the A-League.
Johnson declined to guarantee all 11 teams would survive the shutdown when the league was suspended on 24 March and the cash-strapped league can ill-afford to get back underway without television revenue.
With some inter-state travel restrictions still in place, the league, which includes New Zealand's Wellington Phoenix, will resume in a "hub" format with teams grouped together and playing at selected stadiums without crowds.
Players and staff will be subject to "stringent health and safety protocols", A-League chief Greg O'Rourke said.
Meanwhile the Premier League season will restart on 17 June provided all safety requirements have been put in place.
Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The season will get back under way on that Wednesday with Aston Villa v Sheffield United and Manchester City v Arsenal, which are both games in hand.
A full fixture list will then be played on the weekend of 19-21 June. All games will be played without fans in attendance.
With the restrictions on the broadcasting of Saturday 3pm games lifted, the league said all 92 remaining matches will be broadcast live in the UK by its existing broadcast partners: Sky Sports, BT Sport, BBC Sport and Amazon Prime.
The BBC, normally limited to a highlights show, will broadcast Premier League matches live for the first time since the English top-flight broke away from the Football League in 1992. The licence-fee funded network will have four games.
Subscription-based Sky Sports will have 64 of the remaining games with 25 of those matches broadcast on free channels.
The Premier League was suspended on 13 March due to the novel coronavirus pandemic but teams returned to small group training last week and yesterday voted unanimously to return to contact training, including tackling.
Liverpool, searching for their first league title in 30 years, lead the standings by 25 points.
-Reuters
