The Premier League have called an emergency meeting amid the worsening coronavirus outbreak, with Mikel Arteta and Callum Hudson-Odoi both testing positive for it.
While the league put out a statement on Thursday confirming that fixtures would go ahead as normal this weekend, the situation changed dramatically within hours shortly after.
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Both Hudson-Odoi and Arteta tested positive, as confirmed by Chelsea and Arsenal respectively, and so now the squads and staff will all have to go into self-isolation in the coming weeks to ensure that the virus isn’t spread further.
Naturally, that will lead to calls for the games to be postponed this weekend as a starting point, but reports suggest that the Premier League could now take more serious action.
According to the Guardian, an emergency meeting with the clubs has been called on Friday, and one club executive has told them that they expected the season to be suspended for several weeks while the possibility of the entire campaign being voided isn’t being ruled out either.
All the major leagues around Europe have already suspended fixtures, while cases are continuing to arise within clubs as the outbreak shows little sign of slowing down around Europe at this stage.
In turn, despite the advice from the Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday, based on the claims in the report above, the Premier League could decide what is in the best interests of the players, coaches and fans themselves and call a halt to the season.
Whether or not it leads to a completely voided campaign remains to be seen, as that will naturally have much larger implications in terms of who wins the title, who qualifies for Europe and who is relegated.
With that in mind, fans across the league will wait and see what is decided with UEFA set to hold a meeting next week amid rumours that EURO 2020 could be postponed which in turn could free up the summer for domestic football.