Could Premier League games be shortened to finish the season?

PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor has raised the prospect of games being less than 90 minutes as and when the Premier League season resumes.
Gordon TaylorGordon Taylor
Gordon Taylor

A number of ideas are being floated around to try and restart the campaign safely, including playing behind closed doors at neutral venues, and allowing the use of five substitutes.

Taylor revealed there is a thought to shorten both halves, to ease the burden on players, who have not played in almost nine weeks now.

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Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Taylor said: 'We'll have to wait and see. I'm talking about protocol that's coming out, I'm talking about the future.

“We don't know the future, what we do know is what propositions have been put forward and ideas.

“More subs, games possibly not being full 45 minutes each way, neutral stadiums, there's lots of things put forward.

“We're trying to wait to see what the proposals are and have the courtesy to let the managers and coaches and players assimilate all those and come to a considered view.'“

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Taylor added: “There's a lot of possibilities. Ideally you want to keep the integrity of the competition and of course that was about playing home and away, that's about having the same squad of players before it was suspended.

“There's lots of points to be made, but above all can the seasons be completed as long as it takes and above all can it be completed safely.”

Taylor underlined that a June return date remains the hope: “The very fact that you're in a professional sport, you need to be very resilient and bounce back because you'll get more setbacks.

“I like to think that's how my members are. It remains in process and we will wait and see and take it on a day-by-day basis and see if it's achievable but if we don't try then it's never going to be achievable.

“If everything looks promising, you wouldn't be thinking of matches being played until middle of June, I would estimate.”