Health authorities unlikely to agree to resuming football season in Malta

The Premier League football season is facing the prospect of being brought to a halt after the Superintendent for Public Health said that non-contact sports are currently more likely to be given green light to continue, as they pose the least risk of spreading the coronavirus. Football is classified as a contact sport, as players tackle each other to claim possession of the ball, with physical contact also inevitable during set-pieces such as corners and free-kicks. The Malta Football Association Executive Committee is expected to meet later on Monday to decide whether the 2019-20 BOV Premier League and the FA Trophy will be completed this summer. However, when asked by Times of Malta whether health authorities are making a distinction between contact and non-contact sports in terms of easing virus containment restrictions, superintendent Charmaine Gauci said that it was clear that at the moment non-contact sports posed the least danger. “In sports, we carried out a risk assessment to see which sport carries the most threat for COVID-19,” Gauci said. She went on to note that non-contact sports "pose the least threat" and hinted that in the current scenario, removing restrictions...