Individual sports training can resume on May 4: Italian PM
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte gave the go-ahead on Sunday for professional sports teams to start training again next month, following the Covid-19 pandemic.
But he did not set a date for football's top-flight Serie A championship to resume.
Conte, announcing measures to ease the lockdown during a televised address to the country, said individual training could start on May 4 - when players would still have to respect social distancing rules - and that team training could begin on May 18.
The Italian Football Federation has already drawn up a medical protocol for training.
In contrast, the Spanish football season is unlikely to return until the summer.
In Sunday's daily coronavirus briefing, the country's health minister Salvador Illa was careful not to set any date for a return.
"I cannot say now if professional football will be able to restart before the summer, it would be imprudent of me," he told a news conference.
La Liga president Javier Tebas has been bullish about completing the campaign, to avoid losses of up to one billion euros ($1.53b), and has given three potential restart dates: May 29, June 7 or June 28. - REUTERS
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