Mayor of Liverpool reveals why he believes Premier League’s ‘Project Restart’ is a ‘non-starter’
The mayor of Liverpool believes resuming the Premier League season is a ‘non-starter’ and fears a ‘farcical’ situation with fans gathering outside Anfield – even if the Reds win it at a neutral venue.
The Premier League has told its clubs only ‘approved venues’ will be used, suggesting matches will be played at neutral grounds.
Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson fears crowds would congregate outside Anfield when they win the Premier League
Jurgen Klopp’s men are chasing a first ever Premier League title and are currently 25 points clear at the top of the table.
The league’s ‘Project Restart’ has revealed the hopes to resume the season behind closed doors in June because of social distancing measures to battle the coronavirus pandemic.
But Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson is hugely against the idea of resuming the season.
He told BBC Sport: “Even if it was behind closed doors, there’d be many thousands of people who would turn up outside Anfield.
Give COVID-19 the red card
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“There’s not many people who would respect what we were saying and stay away from the ground, a lot of people would come to celebrate so I think it’s a non-starter.”
When asked if playing at a neutral venue would help, Anderson added: “Even then, I guess that a lot of people would turn up outside Anfield to celebrate and I understand the police’s concerns around that, so there’s a real difficulty here for us.
“I think it would be really difficult for the police to keep people apart and maintain social distancing if they were going to celebrate outside Anfield. It would be farcical.
“It’s difficult for us to try to stop people gathering in parks when the weather has been good, especially young people. And I fear people would just ignore it.
“The police are right to be concerned about that as we are here in the city, and pubic health officials are also concerned about that, so we’d ask the Premier League and government to take into account all of these concerns that we have.
“I think the best thing to do is to actually end the season.
Jamie O’Hara believes the only way forward is to end the season immediately
“It isn’t just about Liverpool – they’ve clearly won the league – they deserve it, they should be crowned league champions.
“The bottom line is, though, this is about health and safety and people’s lives and I think football should have to come second in regards to making a choice here.”
A Premier League meeting will be held on Friday morning with Project Restart being discussed.
Other European leagues have taken it upon themselves in call off the remainder of their seasons.
In France, runaway leaders Paris Saint-Germain have been given the Ligue 1 title.
However, the Dutch Eredivisie season has been declared null and void, with no champions, and no promotion into or relegation out of the division.
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