Premier Soccer League is hopeful that the COVID-19 outbreak will be under control to the extent that they will be given the green light to kick start the 2020 season in September 2020, The Sunday Mail reports.
This was revealed by PSL chief executive officer Kennedy Ndebele who revealed they were indeed pushing for football to resume in September:
We are hoping that we will be cleared by the authorities to start in September, subject to all other health conditions. We remain hopeful, subject to clearance by health and Government institutions. As far as we are concerned, we have not reached a stage where we can talk of season scrapping. You can’t scrap a season in July when the provisional date was August or September.
What will determine the return of the league is the recommendations of the Sports Medicine Committee and if those recommendations are accepted by Government
Ndebele also said they were not entertaining the prospect of the games being played in empty stadiums if they are given the go-ahead:
The possibility of playing behind closed doors is not possible. It’s not viable. Our clubs rely heavily on gate takings. Unless Government gives us clearance that we will not be paying for venues and other services like police and ambulance vehicles, then empty stadia are not possible.
We do not have television like in Europe and South Africa where every game is broadcast so this could impact negatively as the sponsors won’t get enough mileage.
Soccer or what the WHO calls contact sports have resumed in other parts of the world since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus as evidenced by the resumption of the EPL in Britain.
More: The Sunday Mail