At the same time that the Premier League is developing a plan to try to finish the season starting in mid-June, Tottenham coach José Mourinho estimated on Thursday that the return of football "would be good for everyone".
"I miss football", admitted the coach in an interview with Sky Sports.
"If we manage to play the nine remaining matchdays, it would be good for everyone. It would be good for football and for the Premier League," he said.
Tottenham is one of the clubs that has reopened its training center so that its players, keeping their distance and respecting government guidelines, can start training individually in anticipation of a resumption of the championship, which has been suspended since mid-March as a result of the new coronavirus pandemic.
Although some leagues, such as the Belgian, Dutch or more recently the French, may consider the season finished, the Premier League is working on a plan to return to activity called 'Project Restart', despite the fact that the United Kingdom is one of the countries most affected by COVID-19 and already has more than 26,000 deaths.
According to that plan, the clubs would formally resume training on May 18 and the remaining matches would be played from June 8 to July 27, with games without fans in a reduced number of stadiums.
"I like to think that football is never really played behind closed doors," Mourinho said.
"With the cameras, there will be millions and millions of people watching us. So if one day we have to go into an empty stadium, it won't be empty at all."
This forced break will have been good for Spurs, who could have several of their stars back for the end of the season, injured players like Harry Kane, Moussa Sissoko, and Steven Bergwijn, or Son Heung-min, who took advantage of the suspension to return to South Korea to fulfill his military service.
"One thing is not being injured anymore, but another thing is being ready to play football," the coach warned.
"We have to wait for official authorization to resume collective training before we can see if they can return to their level in competition." (D)