Following the rise in COVID-19 cases in the past few months, multiple English Premier League clubs have come out to petition the Premier League governing board to suspend the ongoing season until January.
Tottenham Hotspur was the first club to have a match postponed due to a new COVID-19 outbreak in their club’s facilities. Manchester United have also had two matches postponed on the bounce, as have Leicester and Everton.
Rob Dawson of ESPN claims that these developments have led to most of the top flight clubs moving to have the league suspended for the next three weeks as they work out a solution to the fresh outbreaks.
Dawson reports that the proposal for the suspension would affect four game weeks of the current season as tests are carried out and measures get put into place to mitigate the spread of the virus, particularly the new omicron variant which scientists have claimed to be the variant in circulation.
Football in England will resume on January 7 2022 with the third round of the FA Cup if the Premier League governing body agrees to this suspension call by the clubs.
Darren Bent throws weight behind calls for Premier League suspension
The former Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa striker is in support of doing whatever needs to be done to ensure that football is safe for the players, staff and fans.
Bent spoke to talkSPORT breakfast show: “First and foremost, you want everybody to be safe. I think that’s the most important thing,” he said.
“We all love football, we all missed football when it wasn’t there but in terms of life football is relatively small in terms of what’s going on.”
Bent also referred to the last shutdown, claiming that it took too long to mitigate because the authorities waited too long.
“Last time, in my opinion, it went on too long,” Bent said.
“They keep talking about this new variant that’s meant to be a lot strong and a lot worse, so they’ve got to come to a decision quickly rather than waiting to see what happens.
“They need to get ahead of it and make a decision.”
The Premier League is not the first league to shut down some of its venues due to a fresh outbreak. Some major American sports leagues like the hockey league and the NBA are dealing with the same problems also.