Hatters CEO hopes to finish season no matter how long it takes

Luton Town chief executive Gary Sweet has reiterated his desire that the 2019-20 season should be completed, even if that means running well into July.

The government stated on Monday that professional football could return after June 1 behind closed doors if step two of the coronavirus recovery strategy is reached.

A meeting from the Premier League then took place to discuss Project Restart, which hopes to see English top flight fixtures resume in mid-June if possible.

There has been no news yet about how that will affect the Championship, with Luton finding themselves in the relegation zone with nine games still to be played.

Speaking to Talksport on Tuesday, Sweet said: “I think the Championship will be looking to take guidance from what action the Premier League carries, hopefully this week and really make that decision.

“I think there’s a general consensus that all clubs want to play out the season, but again, this is absolutely fundamental that it’s safe to do so for everyone involved, players and staff and for the general public.

“It is quite important that we try and get the game together, particularly for the league positions.

“If we can play out the seasons then we’re not going to be attracting all kinds of threats of litigations which I feel a bit ashamed about to be honest.

“We have to be open-minded in creating that solution.

“It’s one thing here that is the message that I’m trying to instil certainly within our own club, that we’ve got to keep level headed and we’ve got to try and find solutions to be constructive.

“Not necessarily to start thinking about the threats of what solution they might come up with if the season is cancelled and then start briefing lawyers already, I think it’s going a little bit too quickly on that and there are a number of clubs that are clearly thinking that far ahead.

“I’m in favour of it going beyond July if that can be possible and if that’s not possible, lets not start pointing guns at each other and thinking about our own positions.

"Football is in a precarious position here and we’ve got to protect it.”

Although Luton find themselves in a decent shape financially going into this crisis, Sweet is worried about clubs who are not in such a good position as themselves.

With games expected to come back in front of empty stadiums for the foreseeable future, the Hatters chief has warned that isn’t something that will remain feasible in the long run.

He added: “I’m deeply worried, I think the most important thing here is we protect the professional game and we protect the pyramid that we’ve got.

“As far as Luton Town’s concerned, we’re in a good position and because we’re in a good position we can probably see it in a slightly better way, and we are precarious.

“The real threat here is potentially we might not be playing in front of a crowd by 2021.

“Football can’t go a year without actually having supporters put money into the bank, it’s just not possible.”