March 6 – The return of Premier League football, even behind closed doors, would “lift the spirits of the nation”, according to the country’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab.
Britain now officially has the worst death rate in Europe from Covid-19 and Raab said the government “has had constructive meetings with sports bodies”.
“People would like to see us get back to work and children can go to school safely but also pastimes like sport,” said Raab.
The Premier League, postponed since mid-March, is hopeful of restarting in the week beginning June 8 but that may be optimistic given how far behind the rest of Europe Britain is in testing for Covid-19.
“I can tell you that the culture secretary has been working on a plan to get sport played behind closed doors when we move to the second phase so that is something we are looking at,” Raab said.
“Of course, the key point though – we can only do it when the medical advice and scientific advice is that it can be done safely and sustainably. But certainly that is something under active consideration.”
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