OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL: Serie A set to resume on June 20

After weeks of wondering, we now have a date as to when Lega Serie A will resume its season.

Italian Minister for Sport Vincenzo Spadafora confirmed at a Thursday night press conference that the Serie A season will resume on June 20, nearly 3 ¹⁄₂ months after the last time that we saw Juventus officially take the field at Allianz Stadium. Before that, though, Juventus will be completing its Coppa Italia semifinal against Milan, with the second leg of the two semifinal round fixtures set for June 13 and June 14, with the final to be played on June 17.

Serie B also announced Thursday that it will restart competition on June 20. There was no decision on the Serie A Femminile season, but the growing expectation is that the top flight of women’s football in Italy will get back underway in early July once the medical protocol is completely agreed upon.

Basically, the kind of crammed fixture list we expected is here. And Juventus is going to jump right into it in two weeks as they look to advance to the Coppa Italia final when the second leg of the tie against Milan is played in Turin. Juve and Milan drew the first leg 1-1 back in mid-February.

Here is what Spadafora said regarding the restart of the Serie A season:

“It was a very useful meeting and, as we had said from the start, football was always going to resume when we had the conditions to ensure safety and the CTS gave the all-clear to the protocols.

“Italy is getting back on its feet and it is only right that football should do the same. The CTS agreed with the medical protocol, but confirmed the absolute necessity for a quarantine period if a player were to test positive.

“We also received guarantees the process of swabs for players must not affect or detract from the general population’s access to testing in any way.

“The FIGC also assured me that the Plan B (play-offs and play-outs) and Plan C (using the existing table) can be adopted in case of suspension. It is not up to me as Minister to decide, as that will be done by the FIGC.

“In the light of all those events, we can today say that the season can resume from June 20.”

(Source: Football Italia)

While there’s return date has been finalized and announced, what the actual schedule will look like still remains to be seen. We know there will be a lot of games happening in a short period of time as Serie A races to get things done before the possible resumption of European competition. There are still a handful of games to be made up from the last round of competition before everybody is caught up and on level footing in terms of games played.

Those outstanding Round 25 matches are:

• Atalanta-Sassuolo
• Verona-Cagliari
• Inter-Sampdoria
• Torino-Parma

Whenever Juventus does return to the field for the resumption of the Serie A season following the second leg of the Coppa Italia semifinals against Milan, it will be against Bologna, a game that was originally scheduled to be played on March 13. Sky Sport Italia reported after the announcement that the Juve-Bologna fixture could be played midweek on either June 23 or June 24.