The top two leagues in Sweden have announced that they hope to get their seasons up and running on 14 June with crowds in the stadiums.
Sweden has taken a different approach to most of the rest of the world when it comes to coronavirus, allowing schools, restaurants and shops to stay open, with the prime minister, Stefan Löfven, urging people to behave “as adults”.
On Tuesday the deputy state epidemiologist, Anders Wallensten, said that there had been 185 reported deaths from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, the highest rise in fatalities so far, but added that many of those were because of a delay in reporting from the weekend. Sweden had only 29 new deaths on Sunday and 40 on Monday. In total 1,765 people have died from coronavirus in the country.
Most of those cases have been in Stockholm although Wallensten suggested that a peak had been reached in the capital on 15 April, even if a decline was not yet evident from the data. “Already a bit more than a week ago, the peak was reached, at least according to this model, and we can expect fewer cases each day,” he said.
The Swedish football season was due to start at the beginning of April but was postponed indefinitely. On Tuesday, however, the top two leagues – Allsvenskan and Superettan – announced that they have pencilled in 14 June as a starting date.
A statement read: “Ever since the leagues were postponed the aim has been to play the first games at the start of June. Now we can say that the date we are working towards is 14 June.
“The ambition is still to play all the games with fans at the stadiums but Swedish elite football are following the coronavirus developments all the time in society as a whole and possible new directives from the authorities.”
Other Scandinavian leagues have taken a different approach. The Danish Superliga, which runs from autumn to spring, may restart as soon as 17 May with the aim of concluding the season by the end of July. That would be without fans, however.