THE English Premier League, the Football League and the Women’s Super League and Championship today suspended all matches until April 3 in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

An unprecedented development, it follows the revelation overnight that several Premier League clubs have members of staff, including players and coaches, who are displaying symptoms of the virus.

In Europe, Uefa has announced the postponement of all pending fixtures in the Champions League and Europa League to an as-yet-unspecified date.

The English Football League said in a statement: “The FA, Premier League, EFL and Barclays FA Women’s Super League and FA Women’s Championship have collectively agreed to postpone the professional game in England until April 3, at the earliest. This action, which will be kept under constant review, has been taken due to the increasing numbers of clubs taking steps to isolate their players and staff because of the Covid-19 virus.”

Also, the French football season has been suspended “until further notice” because of the coronavirus outbreak, the LFP, which runs the elite Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, announced.

In a statement, the league said it had taken a “unanimous” decision to stop playing with immediate effect at an emergency meeting, having previously said games would continue to be played behind closed doors until mid-April.

The move means France follows other leading European leagues in closing down the season, with all sport in Italy stopped until early April and the next two rounds of matches in La Liga in Spain postponed.

In addition, the Dutch and Swiss domestic leagues have been put on hold until the end of the month, while Portugal has announced its top two divisions will be suspended “indefinitely”. – March 13, 2020.