Majority of Premier League clubs want season to continue despite rising Covid-19 cases

The majority of Premier League clubs wants to continue playing through the festive period, despite the recent spike of coronavirus cases.

Only half of last weekend's scheduled games took placed due to a spate of Covid-19 outbreaks and players are continuing to return positive results in each fresh round of testing.

This has led to several top-flight managers questioning the safety of continuing to play on. Brentford boss Thomas Frank called for a break last week after he received the news that members of his staff had tested positive midway through a press conference.

Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel also questioned the safety of continuing to play after his depleted side's 0-0 draw with Wolves on Sunday.

Despite this, as reported by The Athletic, the majority of clubs do not want a pause in the festive action.

The Premier League staged a virtual meeting on Monday where a range of measures were discussed. Most of the clubs supported playing on as normal, though a minority did back moving the round of fixtures between December 28-30 to later in the season.

Halting the season entirely was also floated, though it is not believed that a single club would be in favour of this right now.

90min understands that a key factor in each club's thinking is their desire to prevent games being played behind closed doors again.

Executives are extremely reluctant to refund season tickets and pay back sponsors as they had to do during the 2019/20 and 2020/21 campaigns.

For the time being supporters are allowed inside stadiums at full capacity. However, reports are suggesting that England may move to Tier 2 measures after Christmas. Under these rules, just 2,000 spectators would be allowed at games.

This would represent a bitter financial blow to clubs up and down the football pyramid.

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