Football in Europe has been heavily impacted by Coronavirus, with it announced on Friday that all top 5 leagues & European competitions have been suspended from this weekend.

Here, we have identified some of the more significant questions that fans, players and clubs will be asking.

What about promotion & relegation?

There are basically have three options, declare the season void and restart next season with the same teams that started this one in the same division, or have promotion and relegation, either using this season’s positions as they currently are or having play-offs.

All of these scenarios are controversial, which is why the preference is to finish the current campaign it’s just that no-one knows when that will be.

Bundesliga are considering relegating no teams and promoting four for the 2020/21 campaign, meaning they will have a 22-team league. 

In Spain, it’s logical to cap the number of clubs in LaLiga Santander at 22, meaning two teams would get promoted. 

Play-offs could be introduced for this too, with the bottom six teams fighting to stay in Spain’s top flight.

What if the season were to be decided now?

If Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 decide not to resume the season, they could just take the current standings as final.

Then Liverpool, Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern & PSG would win the title.

Liverpool now are 22 points ahead of Man City though Citizens have played fewer games.

Barca have overtaken Real Madrid to move 2 points clear last weekend.

Juve are 1 point ahead of Lazio and 9 points ahead of Inter.

Bayern are 4 points ahead of Dortmund and PSG are 12 points ahead of Marseille with fewer games played.

What about out-of-contract players?

Out-of-contract players are on a collision course with their clubs as they face the prospect of not being able to complete the season.

Those players in the final years of their current employers will cease to be employed by clubs on June 30 when their deals expire.

The prospect of the club season extending into July has become a real possibility after the decision to delay the competition until April 4 at the absolute earliest, opening up the prospect of players not being able to play all the remaining fixtures with their current clubs.

One solution mooted by a Premier League club administrator was to offer out of contract players short term contracts, while some contracts include 28-day emergency extension clauses but that would have to be agreed by both parties.

But clubs are now facing a delicate and potentially expensive situation of ensuring managers have a full quota of players to select if the season extends into July.

When does the transfer window open?

FIFA demands that the transfer window in the summer must be open for around 12 weeks, so it is currently scheduled to open for business shortly after the season is due to come to a close on 12th May.

However, new signings cannot be registered until the start of July, and are subsequently unable to feature for their new clubs until after that date.

If the season was to be extended into the summer though, that raises further problems for the usual transfer window structure, especially as FIFA regulations currently state that a player cannot represent more than two clubs during the course of a single season.

When does Euro 2020 start?

It has been announced that UEFA organised a summit via video conference with representatives of the 55 members associations, boards of the European Club Association, European Leagues and FIFPro to discuss European football’s response to the Coronavirus outbreak.

L’Equipe claim one decision has already been made, as UEFA are expected to announce that Euro 2020 will become Euro 2021.

The tournament is due to kick off in Rome on June 12 with Italy-Turkey, but it’s almost impossible for the various domestic seasons to conclude by then with all the postponements.

It seems inevitable at this point that Euro 2020 will have to be delayed and, seeing as it is a travelling tournament based in several different countries around Europe, it’d be wise to postpone it until next summer.