Pretty much all the European leagues are on coronavirus shutdown through April 3 at the moment — Russia and Turkey the two notable exceptions — but if the latest reports out of Italy are to be believed, they should not be expecting to actually resume next month.
La Repubblica (via Football Italia) claim that the more reasonable timeline is for the suspension is to last at least another month, into the first week of May (with a pseudo-preseason for a couple weeks prior). This would be (more) in line with expert warnings that we have not yet seen the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in Europe.
If Serie A are able to resume play on the weekend of May 3, they would still be able to squeeze in all the remaining fixtures before the end of the fiscal year on June 30 as long as UEFA postponed Euro 2020 to next year. European football’s governing body will be meeting on Tuesday to decide on that issue and more, and the head of the FIGC has been urging them to do so.
“We’re waiting for Tuesday’s UEFA summit and the proposal that President Aleksandr Ceferin will put forward. We were the first to suggest the international calendar be revisited, because considering how far in we are with the various seasons, finishing the club competitions – both domestic league and cup tournaments – must be the priority.”
“Our first objective, compatible with the general situation in the country, is to conclude the Serie A season as planned.”
-Gabriele Gravina, FIGC President; source: Football Italia
If Serie A are unable to resume in May, they will be facing the same tough problem the Premier League might have to figure out eventually: how to resolve (or not resolve?) the season without playing all the games.
So let’s hope we can all make May work and play out the season in full ... which would then presumably be followed by a very short preseason and the new season just a month after that.