Following a two-week suspension, La Liga has decided to postpone league play indefinitely as Spain copes with the increasing number of people infected with COVID-19. League officials met with the Royal Spanish Federation resulting in a statement released on Monday that claimed La Liga will resume operations when the Spanish government proclaims it is safe to do so. There are 110 matches remaining this season, not including UEFA European fixtures.

“The Monitoring Commission established by the current RFEF-La Liga Coordination Agreement AGREES [to] the suspension of professional football competitions until the authorities of the Government of Spain and the General Administration of the State consider that they can be resumed without creating any health risk,” La Liga’s statement read, “Both the RFEF and La Liga wish to express our greatest public gratitude to all those who are dedicating their best efforts to provide essential services to the Spanish people and also share our condolences for all the deceased and a warm embrace from the world of soccer to the many families that are losing loved ones.”

UEFA announced a plan on March 17 regarding scheduling for certain matches and tournaments once play is allowed to continue in Europe. Here’s a summarized version of the results following their meeting last week, according to CBS Sports:

National team competition

• Euro 2020 is postponed until the summer of 2021.
• The Euro 2020 qualifying playoffs, originally set for March, will now be played in the international window in June, pending final review.
• European qualifiers matchdays scheduled in June of 2021 will be rescheduled.
• UEFA Nations League finals, UEFA U-21 Euro and UEFA Women’s Euro 2021 will be rescheduled.
• Clubs will release players to national teams for all rescheduled tournaments.

cLUB COMPETITION

• The goal is to complete all domestic and continental club competitions by June 30, 2020, at the latest, assuming the coronavirus situation improves and playing be deemed appropriate.
• Explore and accept the possibility that some league matches may need to take place during the week and some UEFA club competition matches may need to happen on weekends to make scheduling work.
• A possibly change to the qualifying round of the next UCL and Europa League in case of a late completion to the 2019-20 season.

As of Monday, Spain has reported 33,089 people have been infected and 2,206 have died due to health complications caused by the Coronavirus. Real Madrid president Lorenzo Sanz died at the age of 76 due to complications that stemmed from contracting the disease on March 22.

Article by Frank DeLorenzo