The Nigerian aura surrounding June 12 is bound to get a different meaning for several of the country’s star players in the English Premier League, as talks are now underway to restart the season on that date in history, megasportsarena.com reports.
While the like of Everton’s Alex Iwobi, Leicester City’s Wilfred Onyinyen Ndidi and Kelechi Iheanacho as well as Isaac Success and Tom Dele-Bashiru at Watford will take June 12 from the perspective of the memorial of Chief MKO Abiola’s annulled election and his death, after failing to get his mandate officially confirmed by the country’s former military junta, it will be only about football action in England.
Football action has long been put on hold in the land of Queen Elizabeth, on account of escalating effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic, by Iwobi, Ndidi, Iheanacho, Success, Dele-Bashiru and other players in the EPL will now be glad to learn that action could soon be back in full steam next month.
Details of the report by popular British tabloid, Daily Mail disclosed that the EPL’s Big Six clubs warned the rest of the top flight today that voting to curtail the season on health grounds could set a precedent which would lead to the 2020/21 campaign also being scrapped.
Sportsmail added: “In a longer than usual conference call of the 20 clubs that lasted almost four hours a clear divide emerged between the biggest clubs and the rest, many of whom voiced reservations about the Premier League’s Project Restart plan than would involve resuming the season next month with matched played at a limited number of neutral grounds.
“The meeting ended with a rallying cry from Premier League officials emphasising their determination to finish the season, with a tentative kick-off date of Friday 12 June, but only after a series of disagreements.
“Representatives from several top clubs are understood to have made the point that delaying the resumption until a vaccine for Covid-19 has been found would almost certainly lead to next season being cancelled too as that breakthrough could be as far as 18 months away, a drastic step which could bankrupt the entire sport and other related industries.
“The Premier League will hold another meeting next Friday, which could culminate in a vote of the clubs on whether return, the day after the government are due to publish their lockdown exit strategy.
“The clubs keenest to resume also argued that many of the legitimate health concerns expressed by their rivals, such as the danger of the virus being passed between players and safety concerns about mass crowds gathering outside closed stadiums are still likely to apply later in the year.”
