A-League teams could resume training in June before the competition aims to complete its season in a hub format by the end of August.
The league has been suspended since late March but Football Federation Australia (FFA) chief executive James Johnson has emphasised the desire to complete the remaining regular-season games, plus finals.
“We’d like the remaining part of the season to be finished by the end of August,” Johnson told Fox Sports News.
“The players could be training as early as June as a team and then we’ve given ourselves that window between June and August to finish the season.
“We’re in a little bit of a different situation to the AFL and the NRL in that we only have 27 regular-season matches left and five more play-off matches.
“Starting in August is certainly the very, very latest we’d want to restart but we’re hoping that we’re going to have players up and running again on the football pitch training from June at the earliest.”
(AAP Image/Kelly Barnes)
Johnson revealed that the FFA is looking at “different types of hub models”, flagging a base in either NSW or Victoria.
“The two states we’re looking at are NSW and Victoria and it’s important from a logistics standpoint that we play in one state so we have (the least) amount of travel across borders as possible,” Johnson said.
As a proposed bubble covering Australia and New Zealand is unlikely to be up and running when the season resumes, the lead-up to any restart will need to include time for Wellington Phoenix to move to Australia and complete a quarantine period.
Many A-League players are out of contract from May 31, and the FFA is in discussions with Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) regarding short-term extensions to allow the season to be completed.
“All the players certainly want to get back on the pitch as soon as possible and they’d like to do so with the same teams that we stopped the season with,” Johnson said.
“We think – the clubs, the FFA and also the PFA – that this is important from an integrity standpoint.”
NoMates
Guest
Man i am so over not having HAL to watch on TV. I actually got withdrawals of cold sweats and head aches.
At work
Roar Rookie
I agree, why wait so long. The NRL is starting in under 2 weeks, so get the guys back to training now and get them playing matches in 3-4 weeks.
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
Doesn't make a whole lot of sense that with the season almost completed, the FFA would choose to postpone that completion by 5 months. With training re-starting in June, surely we could have had a return in July? (or even earlier) By the time the A-League returns in August, after a 5 month break, no one is going to remember where we left things at.