Soccer News: Premier League gets green light to start up, most likely June 12

There has been a decent amount of football to watch while this COVID-19 pandemic has raged around the world.

Real Esteli, the newly-crowned Nicaragua Primera Division Clausura champions (after it won the Apertura title in the fall), has kept us enthralled over the last two months. FK Slutsk has become a household name, as has Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino, even though it might be BATE Borisov that is the best team in Belarus.

Even such teams as Taipower in Taiwan, Le Messager Ngozi in Burundi, and Altyn Asyr in Turkmenistan gave bettors some much needed games to wager on, and watch, over the last couple months.

But even with the return of the Bundesliga and K-League, as well as the Portuguese Primera Liga (soon), there is one league that transcends all, in terms of viewership, betting, and fandom.

The Premier League.

Monday, Boris Johnson gave the go-ahead for the English top flight to restart in June, with no fans in attendance, as part of a 60-page dossier on the return of professional sport in England.

Under Phase two of the document:

“Permitting cultural and sporting events to take place behind closed-doors for broadcast, while avoiding the risk of large-scale social contact."

Most teams have nine games left, with Liverpool just six points from a first Premier League title in its history, and the race for the top four and relegation battle both set to go down to the wire.

While fans will most likely not be allowed into the stadiums around England (and Wales in the Championship) until sometime in 2021, the return should give fans and bettors a huge boost, after this dark period.

There is still some work to do, though, as the English F.A. is still fighting with teams about how the league will resume. There is a group of up to eight teams that are rebelling against the neutral ground plan, which would see all teams play games away from their home stadium. Fourteen of the 20 teams have to agree to restart the season.