Aleksander Ceferin: 'Fake News' UEFA Will Advise Leagues to Finish Early

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has rubbished the prospect of leagues in Europe finishing prematurely because of the coronavirus pandemic and titles being awarded to the respective current leaders.

The 2019-20 season is on hold across Europe. At present, the best-case scenario would see some play resuming the weekend of April 4:

Per David Conn of the Guardian, though, a senior figure in the English Football League has said resumption that weekend will be "impossible" given the ongoing spread of the coronavirus.

One of the solutions suggested for solving the backlog in fixtures that will be created is to simply finish the 2019-20 season as it is now and award titles based on current positions.

Speaking at Tuesday's UEFA summit, where it was also decided UEFA Euro 2020 would be postponed by a year, Ceferin made it clear there are no plans to end leagues in their current state, per Gareth Bicknell of the Mirror:

"I've saw and heard some again fake news that Uefa will advise leagues to finish the championships now and decide that the winners are the ones who are number one now. I can say that it's not true. Our goal is to finish the leagues and we didn't recommend anything like that to any association or any league."

In the Premier League, Liverpool have a 25-point lead over second-placed Manchester City and need just two more wins to seal the title, so it would not be overly controversial to simply crown them champions.

But it would throw up numerous other problems around European qualification and relegation.

Even bottom-of-the-table Norwich City have a chance of avoiding the drop if the season is completed because they are only six points from safety:

Meanwhile, Europe's other top leagues are tighter affairs at the top. In La Liga, leaders Barcelona sit just two points ahead of Real Madrid with 11 games to play:

And in the Bundesliga, only six points separate the top four:

In Italy, the European country worst affected by the coronavirus outbreak, Juventus are just one point clear of second-place Lazio in Serie A with 12 games to play in the campaign. In Ligue 1, Paris Saint-Germain's lead is a healthy 12 points.