The Portuguese football season will restart behind closed doors on the last weekend of May, the country’s prime minister said Thursday while saying plans to relax the coronavirus lockdown.
The country’s top-flight Primeira Liga and also the final of the Portuguese Cup are the “only exception” to a ruling that has kept all alternative professional sport suspended, Antonio Costa told reporters.
Costa added that a restart to the season, which has been suspended since mid-March, is subject to approval by health authorities and also the selection of stadiums that will satisfy requirements.
With 10 matches remaining Porto are top of the league, one point sooner than reigning champions Benfica. Braga and Sporting Lisbon are 13 and 15 points back several.
The suspension to the season has hit Portuguese football’s finances exhausting with one in all the league’s main sponsors, media and telecoms group Altice, making an attempt to suspend its payments to first and second division clubs.
Sporting’s fragile financial situation has led to the club cutting player pay by 40 % and putting most of its workers on a partial unemployment theme since mid-April.
