Meeting to take restart a step closer

SENIOR government officials will hold a meeting with the Premier League next week and are ‘hopeful’ a plan can be agreed for matches to return.

City and United will join the other 18 clubs on a videoconference on Monday to discuss Project Restart in further detail.

No formal vote will take place but sides could be asked to approve some elements of the plans.

Oliver Dowden, secretary for digital, culture, media and sport, has confirmed he will talk to the Premier League, the EFL and FA next week about progressing plans for games to resume behind closed doors.

He also claims the government wants football to come back because it will be ‘good for the nation’ but stressed that public safety ‘must come first’.

“It [Football] has not got the green light,” he said. “I met with the Premier League a couple of weeks ago. We’ve had two sessions, the first of which I chaired with the deputy chief medical officer, looking at how we could do this in a safe way.

“But it’s not just the Premier League, the rest of football and other sports that could, potentially, take place behind closed doors. Public health and safety will come first and if we can get a plan that works then I would like us to go ahead with it because, I think, it will be good for the nation and good for football as a whole.

“I will certainly be meeting, on Thursday, with the Premier League, the EFL and the FA and I’m really hopeful we can get this up and running.”