The La Liga fixtures for the 2020-21 Spanish football season has been confirmed less than a fortnight before the competition gets underway.
The league season will get underway on the weekend of 12-13 September with the final round of fixtures to be concluded on 23 May, ahead of the scheduled European Championships next summer.
There are a number of caveats involved though with not every team in Spain’s top-flight beginning that early due to staggered end dates for the 2019/20 season.
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Spain’s La Liga became the third major league this week to announce plans to restart its season. Previously we had heard from the Premier League and Serie A and all eyes turned to Spain where La Liga announced football will resume on June 11 after a three-month pause due to the coronavirus pandemic with the local derby between Sevilla and Real Betis, the government’s department for sport (CSD) said in a statement on Friday.
“At a meeting of the contact group they form alongside the CSD, the Spanish soccer federation (RFEF) and La Liga have agreed to the format of the final 11 rounds of fixtures of La Liga and the second division,” said the CSD’s statement.
La Liga can resume behind closed doors from 8 June, says Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. La Liga president Javier Tebas also stated the league will work with clubs in the coming days, to establish an exact return date, likely to be from June 12.
La Liga players this week started training in groups of no more than 10.
“Spain has done what it should and now new horizons are opening for everyone. The time has come to bring back many day-to-day activities,” said Sanchez.
“From 8 June, La Liga will be back. Spanish football has a huge following but it will not be the only recreational activity that will return.”
La Liga president Javier Tebas hopes Spain’s top flight will restart on 12 June and says coronavirus tests will mean “practically zero” risk to players during games.
The league said on Sunday that five players had tested positive for the virus across Spain’s top two divisions. La Liga started testing players last week as it plans to resume training and play matches behind closed doors.
“I’d like it [the restart date] to be 12 June,” Tebas told Movistar.
“But we have to be careful. It will depend on many factors such as a potential rise in infections, factors which don’t depend on football but on Spanish society.
La Liga president Javier Tebas responded with bemusement to news the French season will end with 10 rounds of matches still to be played.
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s announcement that sport in the country will not be allowed to resume before summer effectively ends the season, but Tebas warned football could disappear if it failed to restart.
He said: ‘I do not understand why there would be more danger in playing football behind closed doors, with all precautionary measures, than working on an assembly line or being on a fishing boat on the high seas.
Spain’s health minister has said that Spaniards should not expect to see professional football restart before the summer.
Spain has been without football since March 12, two days before the nation went into a strict lockdown under a state of emergency to battle its coronavirus outbreak that has claimed more than 22,000 lives.
‘It would be reckless for me to say now that professional football will be back before the summer,’ Salvador Illa said on Sunday.
‘We will continue to monitor the evolution (of the virus) and the guidelines we will present will indicate how different activities can return to a new normalcy.’
La Liga president Javier Tebas has reportedly told clubs they may be fined if they do not show up to play matches after the coronavirus pandemic.
The football calendar has been put on hold in Spain, but there is hope that it may resume in the coming months to see out the rest of the 2019/20 season.
Unsurprisingly, there are some concerns about returning too soon.
But Tebas has issued a very stern warning to clubs who opt against getting back into training and playing matches once again.
Plans to get Spanish football restarted in June are likely to face opposition from the country’s footballers.
The players union AFE are due to meet having been frozen out of the eight hour meeting at the weekend between the Spanish government’s Sports Council (CSD), the Spanish Football Federation, and La Liga.
That meeting was designed to bring together La Liga and the Federation after weeks of public bickering between the two. It worked with a joint statement issued promising greater collaboration, but now the governing bodies have to get players on board with the plan to restart the season on June 6.
Getafe are said to be outraged at plans from the Spanish FA that would see them miss out on a Champions League spot.
There is growing consensus that the 2019/20 campaign will not be completed due to the indefinite suspension of football in Spain caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
As outlined by Marca and Cadena Cope, the Spanish FA say that the four Champions League places would go to the current top four in La Liga – Barcelona, Real Madrid, Sevilla and Real Sociedad and Getafe and Atletico de Madrid would go into the Europa League