The news everybody had been expecting came just after 11 a.m. local time on Friday. Premier League football will be suspended until April 3 at the very least because of coronavirus, although given the disease outbreak is unlikely to have peaked by then, the reality is that it is that the suspension is likely to go on several weeks after that. The EFL board had announced a similar suspension a few minutes earlier, with the Football Association likely to cancel the England national team’s friendlies against Italy and Denmark as well.
What is extraordinary is how quickly the move had come to seem inevitable, only around 14 hours after the leagues had insisted games would go ahead as scheduled–even with supporters in attendance.