The Canadian Football League is the latest sports league to postpone play because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CFL, which was scheduled to kick off the regular season on June 11, announced Tuesday that the season won’t start before the beginning of July.
“Like our fellow Canadians, we in the CFL are striving to meet today’s challenges with both pragmatism and hope,” Commissioner Randy Ambrosie said in a statement. “We are pragmatic enough to see our country still has sacrifice and hard work ahead of it.”
The announcement follows comments by Mayor Naheed Nenshi that Calgary’s ban on public events until June 30 includes CFL and NHL games, should those leagues resume before then.
Toronto Mayor John Tory announced last week that Canada’s largest city is canceling events through June 30 that require city permission. That ban did not extend to sporting events, although provincial gathering bans would factor in.
“We respect the decisions being made by the federal government, provinces and municipalities on behalf of our safety and we will continue to follow their directives,” Ambrosie said. “These include indications from Canadian cities that they will not allow sporting events to take place before the end of June.
“While it is now clear that the 2020 CFL season won’t start before the beginning of July, we are committed to working with our teams, the Players’ Association, (The Sports Network and its French-language sister network) to play a full season or as close as we can come to one. We recognize this may require some creativity and we are preparing for multiple scenarios.”
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