Barcelona boss, Quique Setien has said that the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF)\u2019s proposals for the La Liga season resuming are \u201cunworkable\u201d amid the coronavirus pandemic.
\nNo football has been played in Spain\u2019s top flight since March in an attempt to slow down the spread of COVID-19, which has killed over 19,000 people in the country.
\nWith lockdown measures being eased, La Liga President Javier Tebas suggested last week that the league could be back up and running by May 29 at the earliest.
\nAccording to a leaked proposal, players and coaching staff would be quarantined in a hotel or in their club\u2019s training ground to prevent an outbreak, with regular tests to be carried out ahead of games.However, Barcelona head coach Setien, whose side lead Real Madrid by two points at the top of the division, is pessimistic about the apparent plans to complete the season.
\n\u201cEveryone wants to be ready for when the season starts again, but that cannot happen until the health authorities can guarantee that there will be no problems,\u201d Setien Tidesports source.
\n\u201cI have read the protocol and the reality is I don\u2019t know if it can be carried out as it is written. I think it\u2019s unworkable. I think it\u2019s very difficult logistically.\u201d
\nRFEF officials reportedly met yesterday, with contingency plans if the season cannot resume said to have been high on the agenda.
\nReports in Spain suggest the current top four, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Sevilla and Real Sociedad – will be awarded Champions League berths for next season if there is no resumption.
\nSetien has seen the start of his Barcelona management career truncated by coronavirus, however he acknowledges the difficulty of the situation and how football needs to take a back seat until it is absolutely safe to resume.
\nBarca is currently top of La Liga, but Setien would not be comfortable with his team being handed the title should the league be abandoned.
\nHe said: \u201cThe situation is what it is, I don\u2019t know if this means it is OK to give to us the Liga title, I won\u2019t feel like a champion even having a larger lead than when I arrived, when we were equal with Real Madrid.
\n\u201cThis is a very hard situation for everyone and what matters to me is to find a solution ASAP for going out and being able to see others, and helping people who are suffering this situation with more intensity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barcelona boss, Quique Setien has said that the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF)\u2019s proposals for the La Liga season resuming are \u201cunworkable\u201d amid the coronavirus pandemic. No football has been played in Spain\u2019s top flight since March in an attempt to slow down the spread of COVID-19, which has killed over 19,000 people in the country. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":236018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,26],"tags":[688],"class_list":["post-236014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-front-pix","tag-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=236014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/236018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}