Former EFL and Leeds United chief says football must take short-term 'pain', outlines idea for seasons ahead

Shaun Harvey believes football must take the pain of getting future seasons back on track following the coronavirus outbreak.

The former EFL and Leeds United chief has suggested that running football by calendar year until the 2022 World Cup could be a potential solution.

Football across Europe ground to a halt amid the global pandemic, with the Premier League and EFL announcing a suspension until at least April 3 last week.

UEFA will meet today to discuss all possibilities of how the current campaign could potentially conclude outside of the normal footballing calendar.

Euro 2020 could yet be postponed to leave summer months free, which could see the season concluded in early autumn.

Harvey, though, has suggested a way to complete the ongoing season and potentially break from tradition in the short term.

"There has to be some pain taken out of what is known as our traditional football season at some stage to get this back," he told Sky Sports.

"The question is when do you actually take that pain? You can take the pain at the start of next season, the season after or even the season after that.

"The only logic of that statement is, if you started in January and went through to October you could potentially host the Euros in that November to December slot.

"Yes, we've changed the whole fabric of English football because we're now playing January to October and across Europe and other leagues will have to follow because they all need their leagues to finish. You do exactly the same the year after and we get the Qatar World Cup at the end of that season.

"If I was going to pick a season to treat differently then I'd pick the one after the Qatar World Cup, potentially playing home or away rather than home and away at that time.

"The benefit of doing that is you get two full seasons to repair any financial damage that's taken place, and nobody knows particular division they are going to be in at that particular time.

"So, if it's going to be a short season, everybody knows what it is that they are playing for with plenty of notice and that stops the legal debate and the potential threat of legal action."