John Barnes believes the integrity of the Premier League must be upheld meaning that Liverpool have to complete the season to be classified as winners of the league.
The Belgian Pro League became the first in Europe to cancel their season, and in doing so they declared Club Brugge as the winners.
Brugge are currently 15 points clear of Gent but the main difference is that it is a 16-team league and there was just one game of the season remaining when it was halted.
In terms of the Premier League, the Reds legend said all fixtures must be honoured no matter how long it takes to overcome this global nightmare that is the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Mirror (via BonusCodeBets) reported Barnes as saying:
“A lot of people are looking at it quite binary saying: ‘Liverpool should just be given the league title’ because they’re 25 points ahead.
“But for the integrity of football it is important that the season must be finished.
“You can’t just award Liverpool the league title without promotion or relegation taking place. It’s wrong.
"You have to honour the league which means that the bottom three have to go down, the top three have to come up from The Championship, bottom three go down from there and then the same with League One.
“It’s not a binary choice to say give them the championship and we’ll sort everything else; you can’t do that! I don’t see why you cannot finish the season.
"Even if we play football in three months, six months, 10 months’ time or even a year.
"We have nine games to play and these must be honoured – we then start the next season two or three months later.
The former England international says the football calendar may well have to be turned on its head due to this unique situation.
"Obviously in an ideal world you’d like to start the season in August and finish in May, but in these unprecedented times we may have to start playing again in August and finish in October, two months off until next season in January or maybe February.
“Maybe we scrap the FA Cup, League Cup and Champions’ League so we all catch up, that way we can get the way back to August and play from then until May next season.
"It’s opening up a can of worms to try and start over again, and I don’t see why we are so worried about the following season.
“Completing this season is the most important thing to do.
"For the integrity of football all the way down, it is so important the season is concluded.”
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