A-League season halted ending all soccer in Australia, NZ

SYDNEY, March 24, (AP): Australian soccer’s A-League has suspended its season indefinitely, bringing an end to all professional football competitions in Australia and New Zealand until the coronavirus pandemic passes.

Football Federation Australia chief executive James Johnson announced the decision Tuesday, saying the latest measures imposed by the federal government made it impossible for the A-League to continue. The league had only a few regular-season rounds remaining before the playoffs. Johnson said the postponement will be reviewed on April 22.

“As a national competition played in all parts of Australia, as well as New Zealand, mission complicated became mission impossible,” Johnson said.

Newcastle’s 2-1 win over Melbourne City at an empty stadium on Monday night was the last game completed. Sydney FC led the standings with 48 points after 20 games, eight points ahead of Melbourne City, which has played 23 games. Wellington Phoenix was in third place with 36 points from 20 games.

Johnson remained optimistic the season could resume but said the postponement likely was “heartbreaking” for players, clubs and fans. All soccer in Australia from community to professional level has now been halted.

“We will feel this,” Johnson said. “We will feel the financial pressure on the game at all levels. The game will survive. Will we need to make changes, be different? I say yes.”

The decision allows the Wellington Phoenix players and coaching staff to return home before New Zealand goes into lock down.

Players and staff from the New Zealandbased club have spent more than a week in quarantine at a Sydney hotel in a bid to complete the season after each country imposed mandatory 14-day isolation for all arriving travelers.

Johnson said he had “no regrets” about the decision to bring the Phoenix

Johnson

club to Australia.

The Super Rugby competition, which involves clubs from five countries, suspended its season last week and attempts in Australia and New Zealand to create domestic competitions for their teams have been put on hold.

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Will Wilson, co-head of the NFL division of a sports representation agency and the uncle of former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, was hired Monday as chief executive officer of the troubled US Soccer Federation.

He starts work March 30 and will fill a job that had been open since the retirement on Sept 16 of Dan Flynn, who took over from Hank Steinbrecher in June 2000.

The USSF faces a gender discrimination lawsuit by women on its national team, which led to USSF President Carlos Cordeiro’s resignation on March 12. due on May 27 in Gdansk, Poland, and the Women’s Champions League final, scheduled for May 24 in Vienna, Austria, were also postponed.

The Europa League is also frozen at the Round of 16 stage, with six of the eight first-leg games played.

The Women’s Champions League was about to start the quarter-finals stage.

After consulting European soccer officials on March 17, UEFA created a working group chaired by its president Aleksander Ceferin to look at rescheduling this season’s games.

UEFA said that panel would make more announcements “in due course.”

The future of soccer could be fewer games and fewer top competitions to help avoid a financial crisis, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in a newspaper interview published.

With soccer around the world in near-total shutdown and no end in sight because of the coronavirus pandemic, Infantino said the sport risked going into recession.

“Maybe we can reform world football by taking a step back,” Infantino said in the interview with Italian daily Gazzetta dello Sport published on his 50th birthday.

“There needs to be an evaluation of the global impact,” the FIFA president said. “Let’s all together save soccer from a crisis that risks becoming irreversible.”

Infantino

said

different

formats

could be an answer, with “fewer, but more interesting tournaments. Maybe fewer squads, but more balance. Fewer, but more competitive, matches to safeguard the health of the players.”

Before the pandemic, Infantino added to the congested soccer calendar by expanding the World Cup from 32 to 48 teams for the 2026 edition, and by trying to launch a 24-team Club World Cup next year.

The inaugural edition of the latter tournament in China was delayed last week after UEFA and South American soccer body CONMEBOL postponed their championships by one year to 2021. That was to give domestic leagues time to try to finish their seasons.

The shutdown means there are already too few dates in the FIFAmanaged calendar to complete the

scheduled qualification paths for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

The pressure now on soccer stakeholders – many with conflicting interests – is likely to force a debate on the squeezed schedule that the pandemic has exposed.

Some influential clubs in Europe are pushing to get more guaranteed games in a bigger Champions League, and 20-team top leagues could be under pressure to make cuts. Those include leagues in England, Spain and Italy.

“It’s not science fiction. Let’s discuss it,” Infantino said about the possibility of changing soccer calendars.

FIFA announced last month a task force of officials from member federations, clubs, leagues and player unions that would look at drafting a new match calendar from 2024.

UEFA President Aleskander Ceferin gestures during a meeting of European soccer leaders at the congress of the UEFA governing body in Amsterdam’s

Beurs van Berlage, Netherlands on March 3. (AP)