Liverpool could end their 30-year title drought at home after all when the English Premier League resumes after the COVID-19 pandemic-enforced suspension.
Police originally indicated that they wanted the club’s second game after the restart against Crystal Palace to be at a neutral venue because of concerns that supporters could congregate outside Anfield, while they are prohibited from being inside.
However, the game on June 24 has been scheduled at Liverpool’s home stadium.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Liverpool lead second-placed Manchester City by 25 points and are two wins from winning the title.
Juergen Klopp’s side could clinch the trophy in their first game back against Everton if City lose to Arsenal on June 17. A few hours before that game in Manchester, a match between Aston Villa and Sheffield United is to mark the return of the league from its 100-day coronavirus shutdown.
A reconfigured Premier League schedule released on Friday initially sees 32 games in 16 days — only two days will be without any action. Every game is to be shown live in Britain — many for free in an unprecedented move — because fans will not be allowed at games for the remainder of the season, which is due to end on the final weekend of next month. Pubs are also due to remain closed in England until at least next month.
Sky Sports and BT Sport, who are the main domestic rights holders, will offer fans the option of watching games with pre-recorded crowd noise to cover the silence from stadiums. Sky Sports will have team-specific audio from FIFA video game producer EA Sports.
There will also be new online services to link up housebound fans in video chats alongside game feeds: Watch Together on BT and Fanzone on Sky.
“With live sport on hold for over two months, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how we broadcast in new ways to bring fans together, even if they can’t meet up to watch the match,” Sky Sports managing director Rob Webster said.
TIGHT GAME: The Detroit Pistons, the NBA’s second-best team, barely outlasted the Washington Wizards, who fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss Cade Cunningham’s triple double, Daniss Jenkins’ three-pointer at the buzzer and Javonte Green’s overtime dunk lifted Detroit past Washington 137-135 on Monday, stretching the Pistons’ win streak to seven games. In an unexpected thriller, the NBA’s second-best team barely outlasted a Wizards club that fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss. “We knew how big this game was for us,” Jenkins said. “We wasn’t going to let nothing stop us from getting this W.” Cunningham made 14-of-45 shots and 16-of-18 free throws for a career-high 46 points, and added 12 rebounds, 11 assists, five steals and two
With a hat-trick on Wednesday, Victor Osimhen moved atop the UEFA Champions League scoring table, with the Nigeria striker netting all three goals in Galatasaray’s 3-0 victory over Ajax in Amsterdam. Osimhen moved to six goals this season in Europe’s elite club competition, one more than Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland. The Istanbul club signed Osimhen to a permanent deal from SSC Napoli in the summer for a record transfer fee in the Turkish League reportedly worth US$86 million. The 26-year-old striker needed less than 20 minutes to complete his first hat-trick in the competition. He headed in the opener in the
LIKE FINE WINE: Thirty-eight-year-old Djokovic won his 101st title of his career in Athens, becoming the oldest tournament winner since Ken Roswell, 44, in 1977 Elena Rybakina on Saturday clinched her biggest title since Wimbledon in 2022, defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 7-6 (7/0) at the WTA Finals in Riyadh. The world No. 6 put on yet another serving masterclass and was at her returning best as she became the first Kazakh and the first player representing an Asian country to lift the WTA Finals singles trophy. Having gone 3-0 in round-robin play, Rybakina earned a record US$5.235 million and would finish the year ranked No. 5 in the world. “It’s been an incredible week, I honestly didn’t expect any result, and to go so far,
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
RSS