In the span of a week, "the world's game" went from business as usual, while keeping a close eye on the Coronavirus situation, to most leagues stopping play altogether. The powers that be now look to solutions for some of the world's top competitions like the UEFA Champions League and the Premier League.
UPDATE: Both the UEFA EURO (European Championship) and CONMEBOL Copa America (South American Championship), the two most renowned international tournaments after the FIFA World Cup, announced the postponement of their 2020 editions on Tuesday. Both tournaments will now be played in the Summer of 2021.
Concacaf (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) also annnounced the suspension of it's international competitons, most importantly the Men's Olympic Qualifying tournament in late March. No announcement has been made yet as to what the fate will be for the Concacaf Nations League, the semifinals of which are scheduled to take place this June in Houston.
Here is the updates on the status of club football:
UEFA Champions League / Europa League
The UEFA Champions League and Europa League are suspended for the moment after due in big part to the inability of Italian teams to take part in the Round of 16 stage of either tournament. Some matches had already taken place with no spectators but the implementation of a nationwide quarantine in Italy and, subsequently, Spain have complicated the tournament to continue.
Update: UEFA hosted a videoconference with Presidents and General Secretaries of the 55 national associations, representatives of the European Club Association, European Leagues and FIFPro Europe on Tuesday to discuss the rest of the season.
The decision to postpone EURO 2020, and the colaboration for Copa America to do the same, was made to clear the schedule during the summer for club competitions. Now it's a wait and see but there is optimism to resume play as early as April and finish in late June or July.
CONMEBOL Libertadores / Copa Sudamericana
South America's club championships are on hold for the time being and will also benefit from the Copa America suspension to have a clear schedule this summer.
English Premier League
The Premier League went from expecting to play the weekend schedule to doing a 180 and announcing the suspension of the league after the news broke of Arsenal Manager Mikel Arteta testing positive for Coronavirus.
Spain's La Liga
German Bundesliga
Italian Serie A
French Ligue 1
Ligue 1 has set April 15th as a target date for the best case scenario to comeback from the Coronavirus hiatus. The date takes into account two weeks of training before the league resumes.
