Government officials are warning that coronavirus restrictions could continue for another six months and yet we're continually hearing plans to conclude the football season.
Initial hopes that the domestic campaign in England, and perhaps the European competitions as well, could be completed by the summer now look increasingly optimistic.
With social distancing restrictions making any sport impossible, football's authorities face a reckoning over whether to simply cancel the season right away or play to a finish when the situation becomes safer.
But, as Sportsmail revealed on Tuesday, the Premier League are working on an ambitious plan to restart the season behind closed doors on the first weekend of May and finish it on July 12.
Scrapping the season and expunging all the results so far would lead to an avalanche of lawsuits, especially from those who'll miss out on silverware or promotion.
But restarting the season, even behind closed doors with players isolated in quarantine camps, raises all manner of health issues.
So how should football proceed? We asked our reporters for their opinions on how the season should be concluded and how the key issues should be dealt with.
CHRIS WHEELER - FINISHING SEASON IS UNFEASIBLE
My initial reaction to football being shut down was this: there are more important issues affecting the world right now and, sadly, hopes of finishing the Premier League season are likely to have disappeared long before the coronavirus does.
My view is unchanged on both counts.
The daily bulletins on a pandemic gripping the world puts football into stark perspective and renders the debate about when – indeed if – to resume the 2019-20 campaign largely irrelevant. Still, here goes.
If a national lockdown is extended to at least three months and the football shutdown continues significantly beyond the current date of April 30, it's hard to see how the season could be revived.
When would the Premier League come back? How long would it have to complete the remaining nine or 10 games of the season?
Putting aside the chaos it would cause in terms of players' contracts, the transfer window and the Premier League's £9.2billion TV deal, how would it work?
The government has talked about a gradual return to normality rather than an overnight easing of restrictions.
Would the players be able to resume training en masse with managers and coaching staff because, let's face it, they would need a mini pre-season before playing competitive matches again after such a long lay-off?
Staging games behind closed doors would be preferable to no games at all, but as we witnessed with Manchester United's Europa League tie in Linz earlier this month, even games with no fans can still involve several hundred people – players and staff from both clubs, officials, TV crews and police to ensure supporters don't get in – which would be unacceptable in the current climate.
Unless we're prepared to wait this thing out and finish off the season in mid-summer or as we head into autumn – severely impacting next season as well – I just don't see how it would be feasible.
In recent days, key figures in football – notably UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin – have begun to talk about the prospect of abandoning the season and I think that's understandable.
Unfortunately I think the odds stacked against salvaging it are simply too great. The only option is to void the current campaign and start again with a clean slate in August or September.
That would be a nightmare scenario for the likes of Liverpool and Leeds, but I'm not sure we have any other choice. Start the 2020-21 season as we did the 2019-20 one and go again.
Some clubs will have dodged a bullet, others will cry foul. But we keep being told that these are unprecedented times, and it requires an unprecedented solution. There are more important things in life at the moment than football.
MIKE KEEGAN - RESTART WHEN IT'S SAFE
Why on earth should football be treated any differently than the rest of society?
I genuinely believe we will look on this part of our history in years to come and be ashamed that we placed so much attention on playing out the remainder of the season when the world is in the grip of a pandemic and people are gasping for their final breath in hospital.
Football, at a time like this, is not important. We follow the government rules until this dreadful storm is finally ridden out. If that means the season restarts in October then so be it. If that means next season needs to be cut short, so be it.
While the proposals to play behind closed doors and have squads staying in hotels are just that, they are impossible to manage. What about the cleaners? The receptionists? The maids? The chefs? What about their families?
I get that there is money and livelihoods at stake – there are in every industry, including journalism. But football must play by the same rules as everyone else.
And if Sky and BT do try to sue for breach of contract then good look to them when they put their case in front of a judge.
I am no legal expert but this has to be a force majeure – an unforeseen circumstance that has prevented a contract from being filled. And the PR surrounding such a move should be unpalatable.
Football should restart when it is safe to do so, and not a minute before. To suggest anything else is crass.
Our heroes are not the men and women paid to kick a bag of wind around a field, they are the doctors, nurses, supermarket workers, delivery drivers and everyone else who is working to keep the country healthy. Take as long as you need, football.
JOE BERNSTEIN - THIS SEASON MUST BE COMPLETED
I am firmly of the belief that season 2019-20 must be completed no matter how far away in the future, even if it runs into 2021. There is no reason for it not to.
The Tokyo Olympics will still be marketed as the 2020 Games even though it will take the following year. Theoretical perfection has to go out the window.
The priority is the integrity of the league competition, clubs should be rewarded for seven months of good work and penalised for bad. That's sport.
I don't see the practical difficulties. We are already committed to having a World Cup during winter so lots of things are possible if there is a will.
To create room in the fixture list, you could sacrifice the month-long pre-season tours around the world. You could abandon the 2020-21 League Cup.
You could make the Champions League knockout stages one leg or have knockout games from the start rather than group stages.
All would be worthwhile to finish the season that, let's face it, was 75 per cent complete already.
Will the clubs go for it? I'm not sure. Financially they have banked the 2019-20 season tickets and TV receipts. All they'll care about is collecting for 2020-21.
But for me, pretending no football was played after August 2019 is akin to Bobby Ewing stepping out the shower in Dallas claiming the first few series were all a dream.
SAMI MOKBEL - FINISH SEASON WHEN SAFE FOR EVERYONE
The season, of course, should be finished. That's what, as football supporters, we all want. But only if it is safe to do so.
And I mean safe for everyone - supporters, players, backroom staff, the grounds man, the tea lady - everyone. While the country remains in lockdown, even partially, no football should be played.
The idea that games can be played behind closed doors is criminal. Yes, it protects the fans - but what about the players? Don't they count? People will say they earn fortunes, but what has got to do with their health?
If all that means the season should be voided, then so be it. Hopefully that scenario is avoided, but if there is no football played by mid-June a decision should be made to scrap the season.
One Premier League medic says 'we'll be dropping like flies' if, as expected, players are asked to play two to three times a week to finish the season.
No matter how the season climaxes, there will be winners and losers. Of course, the fairest way to resolve the season is to complete it but if that is not possible then I believe this season and it's results should be erased.
Liverpool, Leicester, Leeds and West Brom won't like that. But it is what it is.
CRAIG HOPE - END SEASON OR PLAY BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
First of all, I do not see how football can be played in front of a crowd for the foreseeable future.
Remember, we are not going to wake up one day and coronavirus will be gone - social distancing is here to stay as a means of protection for some time yet.
That being the case, I believe there are only two options: either curtail this season or finish it behind closed doors.
Of course, I would like to see this season played to its conclusion, I just do not believe it will be. Ever since the initial suspension I have feared that this campaign is done, and everything I have read and heard since has reinforced that opinion.
Aside from the logistical and health concerns, I honestly feel that, come the time when football does return, there will be little appetite to revisit a season from five, six, seven months previous.
A fresh start will be what the majority of people crave, especially given the hardship of what is almost certainly ahead of us.
But if, somehow, we can return to action before, say, June is out, then yes, let us find a way to finish this season in a condensed period, even if that is behind closed doors and live on television.
For now, the majority of Premier League clubs will want the same. Over time, however, I suspect attitudes will change and talk will turn to fitting next season into what already threatens to be a shortened calendar.
So how do you deal with relegation and promotion if we have seen the last of this season?
Why not promote the top two teams in each division (using a points-per-game ratio if needed) and do away with relegation. That would mean only the Premier League had bloated numbers - 22 teams.
To accommodate the four extra fixtures, remove the League Cup for next season, as well as FA Cup replays and the winter break.
This, of course, is assuming we are ready to return no later than August. As for now, the only certainty - in life and in football - is uncertainty.
DOMINIC KING - THIS SEASON SHOULD NOT BE VOIDED
One of the big questions I have had all along was answered in Sportsmail's story by Martin Samuel and Matt Hughes.
The contractual demands of the TV companies – and the watertight nature of them – means the season is now effectively operating to a deadline of July 31.
My initial feeling was that there was no rush to get business concluded and a delay to this campaign could have a positive impact for the next two years, in that we could try seasons that ran from January to October to prepare for the 2022 World Cup.
I am absolutely adamant, however, that the season should not be voided.
People would expect me to say this as the Merseyside Correspondent but Liverpool are the tip of this particular iceberg. What about Sheffield United, who can qualify for Europe?
What about Leeds, so desperate to end 16 years outside the Premier League? What about West Brom, who have benefited from Slaven Bilic's sure touch? What about poor Barrow, who are dreaming of reaching Football League status?
If you void the season, do clubs give back all the season ticket revenue they took for 2019-2020 as none of the games will have counted?
Do subscribers to TV channels ask for refunds because the action that has been beamed into their living rooms has stood for nothing?
There will not be a unanimous verdict on this matter. Clubs who stand to benefit from the season being voided will argue vociferously for that outcome, those who are on the verge of achieving something significant will want the season played to a conclusion.
The safety of players and supporters is paramount and until social distancing measures are relaxed, we cannot think about playing football again – how, for example, could players do the basic process of training without coming into contact with each other?
Playing behind closed doors won't look good aesthetically but these are extraordinary times and it could be that stadiums are out of bounds for spectators until 2021. We just don't know.
If the 2019-2020 season can be played to a conclusion without any fans in the background, so be it.
JACK GAUGHAN - HONOURS CANNOT BE HANDED OUT
If the league season was cancelled tomorrow then divisions should remain as they are. Not all teams have played the same amount of games.
As an example, Aston Villa have a game in hand at the Premier League's foot so relegating them based on points accrued from one match fewer is absurd.
That does also mean, for me, that honours cannot be handed out either – however unfortunate and unlucky that may be to those teams currently topping their respective leagues.
There are far greater issues to be dealt with than sport right now and, while live games on television would offer a degree of escapism, the impact that might have on the emergency services is too much to bear.
Initially I backed the idea of behind-closed-doors matches but if the pandemic fails to slow in the coming weeks those would seem ill-advised.
If players are having to quarantine in the same hotels for weeks on end, you wonder whether it is all really worth it.
How long the authorities are willing to wait to make a definitive decision remains to be seen, and could become clearer by the end of this week.
Broadcasting contracts are a major problem, of course, and the ramifications of that will, be felt by almost every club.
As a result, the majority of Premier League clubs will have a willingness to find a solution, to finish the current campaign.
Those in the EFL might not be quite as anxious. Two-thirds of the pyramid are probably not hugely concerned about the integrity of competition on sporting grounds.
Ultimately, if football is not ready to resume by the end of June – providing the United Kingdom finds itself in a stable position – then the focus perhaps ought to be on 2020-21 instead.
Additionally, that represents more clarity on player contracts and the transfer window moving forward.
DANIEL MATTHEWS - PLAY BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
Among the chaos, this much is clear: even in the past week, the goalposts have moved markedly. You imagine they will keep doing so for some time.
It's no wonder trying to come up with solutions feels about as worthwhile as urinating into a particularly strong headwind.
When it was first suggested that games should be played behind-closed-doors, many argued that football needed fans.
It now seems obvious that only in empty stadiums can the Premier League hope to finish the current campaign. That seems the best possible outcome now. It's not ideal, but what is in these times?
I initially saw no insurmountable problem in delaying the season a few weeks or months. I still don't.
Yes, the ripples will continue to be felt over upcoming seasons, but football's calendar is ever changing, anyway. That really should be the least of people's concerns.
The issue is whether even a belated finish will be safe. If it is, ending the domestic season over a few weeks seems the smoothest course to take - provided no player or worker is put at unnecessary risk of illness or injury.
Using World-Cup style quarantine camps is not the worst idea we've heard.
The same applies to the Champions League and Europa League. A skeletal, quick-fire end to the tournament would be ideal, but is inherently far more difficult because more countries need to be safe enough to take part.
Should the health crisis fail to improve towards the end of July, you would expect the implications on professional football to be low on the nation's priorities.
Unfortunately, though, when you consider the sums involved - and the potential collateral damage to clubs and jobs at both ends - it's obvious why that deadline matters. And why it must be met if possible.
The costs of cancelling the season could be eye-watering. And that's before you try to work out the logistics over promotion, relegation etc.
Taking a points-per-game total seems the fairest solution of an awful situation. But, even then, you would imagine the clubs that lose out will not take the implications quietly.
At worst, many clubs will surely go under if masses of money isn't made available. But even saving them is more complex than asking bigger clubs to cough up. Many of them will feel the pinch if this drags on. I simply can't foresee any end to this which isn't messy.
Not least because unanimity will surely be all-but impossible. For footballing and business reasons, everyone will be pulling their own way at a time that requires some compromise all around.
But hey, who knows, maybe football clubs, broadcasters, national associations, UEFA, FIFA, players, agents, and the emergency services will find some common ground to suit everyone. Sounds likely, doesn't it?
Fortunately I don't have to make the decisions. As this senseless ramble illustrates, I'm more confused than most.
MATT BARLOW - BE PATIENT AND FINISH THE SEASON
The key is to complete the season. Just as it was the key when the season was suspended. The deeper we all go into the pandemic then the less relevant football seems and the less people will care.
So there might be an increase in support across the country to wipe out the season, forget about it and jump ahead into a new one.
That might seem to be cleaner and simpler but it won't be at all clean and simple when the legal complaints erupt and the integrity of English football is damaged.
Completing the season remains the best solution. Ideally, with a crowd rather than behind closed doors. It will require patience. Something not easy to find in modern life.
It will require compromise and will involve some hardship for clubs, especially those lower down the leagues. The immediate priority for all those clubs in the Premier League and the EFL should be to help each other, make sure all 91 survive and in turn help their communities.
Use the collective brainpower of all those well-paid executives in the game to tackle this problem first.
Then, the season can restart when it is able to restart and the 2020-21 season can be adjusted accordingly. If it takes 12 months then cancel 2020-21 and go straight into 2021-22.
If necessary, when football is in a position to start again then finish the incomplete season as quickly as possible.
Cram the calendar with matches and coaches will have to use their full squad and man-management skills to placate those players who fear they simply cannot play three times in a week.
All of this is preferable to a premature recall for football. It might lift morale around the country if the season restarted sooner rather than later and it would certainly provide entertainment for those stuck indoors but nothing which diverts medical staff away from the frontline of healthcare can be justified.
If the outlook changes in a month or six weeks then by all means reconsider the options.
As for the notion of finishing the season imminently with a series of games played at one or two venues with the players somehow kept in complete isolation between matches, it sounds like a terrible idea, fraught with problems of a practical nature and probably conjured up TV executives.
TOM COLLOMOSSE - ABANDON CURRENT SEASON BY JUNE
Slowly but surely, the mood is shifting. A couple of weeks ago, no Premier League club would have seriously considered writing off the 2019-20 season due to the coronavirus crisis.
A majority still hold that view, but cracks are starting to appear. We read of senior executives who doubt the moral case for bringing back football when the country remains in the grip of the pandemic.
Since the day the season was suspended, I have believed strongly that everything possible should be done to finish it – but only when it is deemed safe for football to take place in a 'normal' context: players preparing for matches as they usually would, fans attending games as they usually would.
If we reach, say, late June and there is still no prospect of that happening, then perhaps it is time to abandon 2019-20 and look forward. Aim for a late-August/early-September start and play 2020-21 with as little disruption as possible.
Yes, there will be disappointment – no title for Liverpool, no promotion for West Brom, Leeds or any of the other sides striving for a higher division. Yes, there will be legal threats and financial wrangling.
But given what is happening in the wider world, maybe football can find a way to come together, settle its differences with as little damage as possible, and focus on the future.
The further the pandemic progresses, the more unworkable the ideas become. The latest is to 'quarantine' players in a hotel for most of June, in order to squeeze in the remaining top-flight games.
An innovative suggestion, maybe, but how on Earth could it work in practice? What about the hotel, medical and other staff required to deliver this? How would the necessary social-distancing measures be observed in this context?
If we are raising suggestions like these in late March, maybe the writing is on the wall.
It is also worth considering what happens in other countries, too. If seasons start to be abandoned in major European leagues like Serie A and La Liga, it would be hard for competitions like the Premier League and the Bundesliga to continue.
How to decide European qualification when some championships finish, but others don't?
Let's hope the reality proves brighter than the current outlook. Let's hope in six weeks, two months' time, it is realistic to think about playing football again.
At the moment, though, there is little evidence for such optimism. The more time passes, the likelier it becomes that the authorities will have to give up on 2019-20.
IAN HERBERT - WE MUST FINISH THE SEASON
Let the season finish as and when it can. If that's August, with a November ending, then so be it.
Why do we have stick to same cycles that we always have? Only by August will we actually be emerging from a situation the likes of which we have never known in our lifetime and will hopefully never know again.
So, start the football when it is safe and when audiences are able to assemble with confidence at stadiums. Complete the 2019/20 season.
Then, a break, and a new season starting in December and running, perhaps, until the following July. Because playing a plastic, soulless form of football behind closed doors is a terrible idea.
The sanctity of domestic football should prevail. It is more important to complete the domestic campaign, fulfil the contracts already put in place, resolve promotion and relegation, allow the rightful title winners their crown.
This would impact on Euro 2020. To which I would say, let it go. The concept of a Europe-wide tournament was a terrible one in the first place.
Even if Britain is beginning tentatively to get back on its feet again, a year from now, there are such uncertainties about other countries. We are already hearing about new, intermittent shut-downs.
How will Italy, one of the host countries, be faring by next summer? What about Spain, which has also suffered grievously. The thought of ploughing millions into host city status will surely seem crass to them.
A re-ordered domestic football impacts on the European club competitions. So abbreviate them. Make them 32-team knockouts. Let the League Cup go, too.
Some clubs will miss out. Well, that's just the way it is. If these times have given us one thing, then it is surely a sense of perspective.
Beyond the gilded world of the Premier League, the EFL clubs will also need months to rebuild when we are over this hill. We are already hearing that some Championship clubs are £5m down in just two weeks without football.
League 1 and 2 clubs will be hit by a £250m black hole. Many argue that a wage cap will be needed. Revenues will not just recover overnight. The mop-up will be monumental.
We need a slowing down, in other words. An acceptance that football cannot just pick up as it left off, at the same breakneck speed. That, as we stagger back into the daylight, there will be less of it for a time.
And that we must savour what we have that little bit more. (No men's Euros, incidentally, means a proper spotlight for the women's Euros, on British soil.)
This will mean contractual arrangements being reneged on, of course. But let us at least agree on one thing. That there will be a moratorium on any legal claim lodged within sport because of this crisis.
That those who seek to bring them – agents, sponsors, clubs - be assigned the pariah status they deserve.
People, clubs and companies will all lose money because of the road we are currently travelling. Millions more will have lost those they love.
In the broader scheme of things, a few lost or diminished football tournaments is not of the remotest significance.
STEVEN FLETCHER - END THE SEASON NOW
I would end the season now, with a binding decision taken as soon as possible so that all clubs can start to plan for the future.
I don't say this lightly. Of course Liverpool would be deserved Premier League winners and clubs like Leeds and West Brom have come so far this season.
But I think we're wearing rose-tinted spectacles if we think football is going to be played in the next couple of months.
This lockdown Is here for quite some time yet. And, when restrictions are gradually lifted, it seems likely social distancing will still be required of us all, including footballers.
Advocates for finishing the season say we should then have a quick festival of football, with dozens of games crammed into a short timeframe and clubs playing every couple of weeks behind closed doors.
But I think they are basing that argument on an assumption we'll be back playing sometime before the end of June.
I sincerely doubt that will be the case. And the problem with this virus is that we're battling the unknown. So my best guess is as good – or bad – as yours.
So I say we end the uncertainty now. There will be an inevitable outcry but what we're going through is so much bigger than that.
When we come out of the other side, whenever and however that may look, the only certainty is that our lives will be very different.
Thousands will be dead, there will be huge numbers unemployed and communities wrecked by the economic impact of this pandemic. Your high street won't look the same… nothing will.
So why expect we can just dust ourselves off and carry on where we left off with the football calendar?
I don't think it's feasible or likely that we'll have any sort of football for a while.
So I think we take the tough decisions now; let clubs then focus their energies on supporting their employees and local communities through the dreadful few months ahead.
And then let's start again with a fresh new season – with inevitable changes to the calendar – that can get fans excited about football again
Source: m.allfootballapp.com