The coronavirus and the resulting societal shutdown have reminded many of us how much we take professional sports for granted. Thankfully, the English Premier League just announced its plans to resume, meaning the world’s best soccer league will take the field again soon.
Many people face much more severe challenges during this time of crisis, but don’t dismiss the importance of this development. For sports fans across the globe, sitting around at home with all major competitions canceled has been a real bummer. And it’s more than just a lost source of entertainment. For many, sports represent a form of community, a bond they share with others, and a key escape from the monotony of life’s challenges. With new studies increasingly showing the coronavirus lockdown’s deleterious effect on the nation’s mental health, this can’t come soon enough.
There’s an economic aspect here, too. Sports teams, stadiums, and the like employ massive numbers of people and inject large sums of money into their local economies. Keeping the league on ice leaves many people’s financial prospects frozen as well.
Soccer fans will have live Premier League soccer back on their televisions sometime in early June, as the United Kingdom’s government has just set June 1 as the date sports leagues are permitted to start back up. The current plan is a June 12 restart, according to the Telegraph. However, fierce behind-the-scenes debates continue between different clubs and league officials as differences are hashed out over where matches will be located. In particular, low-ranking teams are concerned that this restart will unfairly disadvantage them, sinking their bottom line.
And when the Premier League does begin again, things will look different for some time. The league won’t permit live audiences, meaning teams will play in empty stadiums, and they’ll enforce strict testing and isolation of players. All of this is far from ideal, but the trouble is worth it. (The only downside to resuming play is that the joke known as Arsenal F.C. will be among the teams back in action.)
People need something to take their minds off the constant dark news and worries of life amid a pandemic. Our hyperpolarized society needs back sports broadly as a unifying, largely apolitical facet of life. So long as it can be done safely, restarting the Premier League will be a great first step.
