Aubameyang scores twice again
to cancel out Christian Pulisic’s
opener and seal a 2-1 victory.
SOUTH KOREA:Supporters
return to stadiums in the K-League,
with ten per cent of stadiums
opened up for three fixtures.
PORTUGAL:Porto beat
arch-rivals Benfica 2-1 in
the Portuguese Cup final to
complete a domestic double.Sunday,August 2
ITALY:Serie Aseason concludes,
with Lecce relegated from Serie A
after one season in the top flight.
SCOTLAND:Odsonne Edouard
fires a hat-trick past Hamilton
as Celtic begin their quest for an
unprecedented tenth successive
Premiership title. Title rivals
Rangers also make a winning
start, beating Aberdeen1-0.
UAE:CAS dismisses United Arab
Emirates’ allegation that Qatar
fielded an ineligible player at
the 2019 Asian Cup.
TANZANIA:Simba complete
the domestic treble by beating
Namungo in the FA Cup final.
Tuesday,August 4
GERMANY:Football clubs in
Germany’s top two divisions agree
to plans drawn up by the league,
which could allow the partial
return of supporters to stadiums
from mid-September.
ENGLAND:Fulham are promoted
back to the Premier League at the
first time of asking after beating
West London rivals Brentford 2-1
in the Championship play-off final,
thanks to a brace by left-backJoe
Bryan in extra time. Meanwhile,
Wigan Athletic’s relegation to
League One is confirmed after
failing in their appeal against
a12-point deduction for
going into administration.
Wednesday,August 5
ENGLAND:Arsenal announce 55
redundancies of non-playing staff.
ITALY:The Europa League last
16 resumes, with Internazionale
knocking out Getafe and joining
Shakhtar Donetsk, Copenhagen
and Manchester United in the
quarter-finals of the tournament.
Thursday,August 6
ENGLAND:Wolverhampton
Wanderers beat Olympiakos in
the Europa League, while Basle,
Sevilla and Bayer Leverkusen
also qualify for the mini-
tournament in Germany.WORLD SERVICEOlunga had scored12 goals in his first12 games, are
drawing a lot of positive attention. If the coronavirus
suspension hasn’t exactly turned the league upside
down, some teams have clearly coped better than
others.
TheJ.League’s top division kicked off as planned
on the fourth weekend of February, but then did not
play again for over four months before resuming
in front of empty stadiums onJuly 4. The writing
was already on the wall in late February, of course,
but most people were still surprised on that first
weekend when Vissel Kobe
told their fans not to shout
or chant but only to clap
during the match. Today,
limited numbers of fans
have been allowed back
in the stadiums – up to
5,000 or 50% of stadium
capacity, whichever is
smaller – and clapping is
the only kind of applause
allowed.
Afterthatfirstweekend,
theJ.League led the way in
postponing matches ahead
of both otherJapanese
sports and also the cinema,
theatre and other closures
that followed. It was a
step-by-step process. The
first postponement was for
three weekends only, but
that was then extended
several times before
eventually becoming
indefinite. Play finally
resumed after the
government lifted the
state of emergency.
Aside from the games,there were also all
the questions about
money. By April, the
J.League was also
arranging to make
special three-year
loans to member
clubs, worth up to
350 million yen in
the case of first
division teams, to
help tide them over
during the crisis.
Simultaneously, the
league was also
entering negotiations
with its own banks
for committed credit
lines worth well over 20 billion yen for what could
be its first major loans since the league kicked off in- In tandem, all prize money for 2020 has been
halved, and a call has been put out for private and
corporate donations to sustain the sports projects
normally funded by the football pools. There is
obviously concern about what failure to complete
the full fixture list could yet mean for the league’s
lucrative broadcasting contract with DAZN.
The weekend ofJuly 4 was, coincidentally,
intended to be the league’s last round of matches
before the summer break for the ill-starred Tokyo
Olympic Games. The first direct consequence of
this was the players now faced an extremely tight
schedule in the difficult heat and humidity of the
Japanese summer. For Division 2, the new schedule
effectively meant playing two games a week for the
entire remainder of the season.
The league has made several changes to help
everyone cope. As in most other leagues, teams are
now allowed to use five subs in a game instead of
three, and the league has decreed there will be no
relegation this year, only promotion. The league
season has been extended by two weeks to
December19, and the Emperor’s Cup and League
Cup formats have been revamped to greatly reduce
the match load. Another consequence of the
pandemic has been the decision not to introduce
VAR this season after all because of the difficulty
of securing enough referees.
Even so, theJ.League is simultaneously allowing
for the possibility this season will not be completed
at all. No awards will be made this year in any
division if 75% of the matches have not been played
and any club has not played 50% of its games. The
fragility of the situation was underscored onJuly 26
when Grampus’ game at Sanfrecce Hiroshima was
postponed after a Nagoya player and members
of team staff tested positive for coronavirus.
AlthoughJapan has contained the coronavirus
so far without any of the massive spikes seen in
the West, the ending of the state of emergency was
followed by an immediate and sustained rebound in
the number of confirmed cases. The decision to let
a restricted number of fans into the stadiums from
July11 was already looking rather alarming at the
time and those restrictions are currently being
extended two weeks at a time, most recently to
the end of August. For theJ.League, this is still
only the beginning of a long, hot summer.
No chants
allowed...fans
at the last game
before the league
was suspended
in FebruaryIf the coronavirus suspension
hasn’t exactly turned the
league upside down, some
teams have clearly coped
better than others