The English Premier League will resume on June 17 after the clubs gave “Project Restart” the green light at a shareholders' meeting on Thursday, according to James Olley of ESPN FC.
The first matches will be headlined by Manchester City vs. Arsenal and Aston Villa at home against Sheffield United to complete Week 29 in full.
The English Premier League is hoping to play the remaining 90 games starting the following weekend, so that they finish the season by August 1.
The FA Cup will be completed then, with the final taking place on Aug. 8. The remaining Champions League and Europa League fixtures are expected to trickle in after that, assuming the coronavirus pandemic has subsided and allowed for international travel.
The English Premier League was one of the last European leagues to come to a halt, as it was suspended on March 13 after Leicester triumphed over Aston Villa with a dominant 4-0 win on March 9.
The possibility of staging friendlies at training grounds with teams nearby was one of the items discussed at the shareholders' meeting, allowing teams to minimize travel and prevent any further spread of the coronavirus.
Several clubs wanted four more weeks of preparation after teams approved contact training in a vote on Wednesday, but the league hopes to speed up the process under the pressure from UEFA to complete domestic matches by the beginning of August.
Testing capacity will increase from 50 to 60 people per club. Anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 will be asked to self-isolate for seven days. There have only been 12 positive cases of the virus out of the 2,752 people tested.
A total of 100 days will have passed by the time Manchester City and Arsenal match up on the game since the start of the hiatus.
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