Competitions are getting pushed further and further back and time is going to run out.
With FIFA World Cup qualifiers, domestic seasons and international travel chaos, Asia’s number one club tournament is in danger of being squeezed out.
In countries such as China and South Korea that seem, at the moment, to have the virus under control, there is talk of finally starting the football season. Yet, even Beijing and Seoul have yet to set a firm date.
Late May is likely to be the earliest meaning that both will have lost three months.
Even with the K-League agreeing on a shortened season, there are going to be games coming thick and fast.
Coaches are preparing to play every four days, through monsoons months and the hottest parts of the summer.
Then there is the international window. China national team coach Li Tie said last week that he did not think that World Cup qualifiers will be able to start until October.
By the end of 2020, we should be almost halfway through the final round of qualification.
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As things stand, it is uncertain if it will be even possible to finish the second round before 2021. There are four rounds of games remaining.
Playing those this year will be headache enough for Asian football but that is still easier than finishing a 32-team club competition that has barely started.
The Champions League group stage kicked off in February but was officially postponed in the following month.
Some teams have not even played a single game, some have five left in the group stage, with others still needing to play four. Somehow, that needs to be finished.
Those games were originally put back to May and June but those dates are now impossible.
Even when it is finished, there are eight knockout matchdays scheduled.
All that is not going to happen. At the very least, the knockout games will have to be reduced to one-legged affairs.
Even lightening the load a little leaves as many as ten rounds of football to be played. Organising that by the end of the year is increasingly looking like an impossible task.
“Even if international travel was in a normal situation, it would not be easy to finish the AFC Champions League this year,” an official at the Japan Football Association (JFA) told The World Game.
“When football does start again, then there will be so much going on. In Japan, we are hoping to start the J.League in June and when it does start there are going to be lots of games. When it does become possible to play international games then World Cup qualifying has to be played.”
The travel situation is far from normal. Even when domestic leagues restart, international restrictions will still be in place for some time.
China is currently not allowing foreigners to enter at all. Countries around Asia have imposed 14-day quarantine periods on arrivals.
Australia’s Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham warned at the weekend that there is going to be no international travel any time soon.
"You should really be thinking about the type of trips you might take in Australia when restrictions on travel are lifted on travel in Australia, however many months away that may be,” Birmingham said at the weekend.
Asian Football Confederation (AFC) officials admit that there is increasing concern about the Champions League.
“As we are still nowhere near finishing the group stage, it may be that the 2020 tournament will be cancelled,” an AFC official told The World Game.
“Nobody wants that but at this stage, it is a possibility."
If the competition is cancelled then the likeliest, fairest and most practical option would be to simply start again next year with the same teams.
That would have to be decided but we may have seen the last continental club action this year.
