Here's the official MLS statement: MLS statement confirming the 30-day suspension of match play effective immediately: pic.twitter.com/uKrXVSVo1E— Emily Olsen (@EmilyTOlsen) March 12, 2020
<cough, cough>....................................ACHOOO!!!!...............................sorry I should have covered my mouth.
I just hope MLS is not going to be so foolish to try to play all the lost games cramping them in to keep the original end of the season instead than just making the season longer with an MLS Cup final sometime in late november or early december.
An interesting side note to all of this is that MLS may just back into a European schedule through delay and necessity. If they play the whole season, MLS Cup won't be held until late November or December. Given that the league now has moved up the starting date into February, why not just go with this schedule -- start league play in mid August and play through November, shut down in December and January and begin play mid-February in warm weather locations or domed stadia with full move to outdoors by March 1 and end the season at the end of April/early May.
On Wednesday evening I returned my tickets for the midweek Toronto game. And an email confirmed my FAM. looks like I picked a good day to quit sniffing glue
I have been saying this for years. Ultimately, it's FIFA which has the power to mandate this. They are just let USSF decide fot the time being, but FIFA could simply tell USSF one day that they need to switch to an international calendar August to May. They are not going to do that with Iceland or Sweden, but they may require that for major tournaments one day (I guess at this stage MLS is not considered a major tournament by FIFA)
Given the CDC's recommendation of no gatherings larger than 50 people for 8 weeks, don't expect MLS to start up again any time soon.
Given the acceleration of the spread of Covid-19, my guess is that, maybe, the NFL will be the first league to restart this fall. I think both baseball and soccer are done for the season as are the NBA and NHL. The only possibility for these sports to return within the next few months would require games in empty stadia and arenas. My son and I have tickets to the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal in mid-June and I don't expect to go there either. Those races bring people in from all over the world, which makes such gatherings a prime incubator for the spread of anything communicable. Expect a summer without organized sports.
The best case NBA scenarios are looking like they might be small arenas with no fans in the stands in June or July. I'm not optimistic.
But even NBA teams will need 15 players and 10 more staff (coaches, trainers, equipment, arena staff, etc) just for practice. For several weeks, and then scrimmages vs other teams. MLB and MLS squads and staff would be even larger. And then you consider NFL OTAs and preseason practices
My brother, who works for the Mt. Sinai hospital system in NYC, has told me that the "all clear" probably won't be issued until July or August. Hopefully, that might be pushed up to around to May or June. But, issuing an "all clear" doesn't mean that the risk of getting coronavirus has disappeared. It simply means that the crisis of hospital overload has been mitigated and that medical researchers have come up with appropriate testing kits and a regimen of existing medicines (not a vaccine - that's way off in the future) and treatment that make the disease more manageable, if not less deadly to the most vulnerable. At some level, life in our developed civilization will begin to come back online. Already, people working in essential services such as doctors, nurses and hospital personnel, firefighters, policemen, sanitation workers, long and short haul truckers, gas station attendants and auto mechanics, farmers and dairy workers (cows continue to give milk, after all), plumbers, electricians and longshoremen continue to clock in everyday. Over time, less essential levels of the work force will be called back to work. Unfortunately, professional sports is at the bottom of the pile in terms of being essential to the proper functioning of society and, moreover, enclosed areas, such as stadiums and pubs, will continue to be seen by medical providers as potential incubators of disease.
https://www.uefa.com UEFA suspends finals for Champions and Europa Leagues. UEFA 2020 will now be UEFA 2021 And Tokyo Olympics will now be in 2021
Not surprised. If MLS can restart between mid-May & early June, there'd be a reasonable possibility that the entire season could be played before early December, with playoffs finishing up before the New Year's Day. On the other hand, covid-19 won't be whipped until a vaccine is tested & approved. There could be further outbreaks in the fall & early winter.
Doctors are saying that in previous plagues/pandemics when people start acting normally again the illness roars back.
I suspect Dr. Fauci would say that, but he is likely to be fired before he speaks up - or fired if he speaks up.