Liga MX Cancels 2020 Clausura Season

No champion will be crowned, and it's unclear when domestic soccer will return in Mexico as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Liga MX has called off the 2020 Clausura season, with the Mexican top flight finding conditions unsafe to try to fit the rest of the campaign in amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The regular season–Mexico splits its calendar year into two seasons, the Clausura and the Apertura)–was 10 games into the 17-match schedule, with Cruz Azul and Leon leading the table at the time of the suspension in mid-March. There will be no champion (Mexico decides its champion with an eight-team playoff), the league says, but those top two clubs will be entered into the 2021 Concacaf Champions League as a result of their table positioning at the time of the stoppage.

"It’s undisputed that we are living in unprecedented times in our country, which forces the soccer industry in Mexico to act with absolute reason and respond with unity to the requirements that have been presented to us," the league said in a statement.

Mexico will look to continue its domestic league with the start of the Apertura, but there are no airtight details on when that may occur. Officials will decide in the first week of June when it is safe for clubs to resume training, and in conjunction with government and public health officials will make a determination about the start of the season, which is usually slated for mid- to late July.

Even when the Apertura starts, it's expected that fans won't be attending matches at stadiums for the foreseeable future. The cancellation of the league also all but guarantees that the 2020 Concacaf Champions League's suspension continues through the summer. It was halted in the middle of the quarterfinal stage, with clubs from Liga MX, MLS and Honduras's Olimpia still involved.

There had been division between the clubs in the league whether the Clausura should go on, but Thursday, Santos Laguna revealed that eight asymptomatic players had tested positive for the coronavirus, and that surely played a role in Friday's decision to call off the season.

Liga MX's president, Enrique Bonilla, had also contracted the virus in March, but he made a full recovery.

In Mexico, there have been about 60,000 reported cases of the coronavirus, with over 6,000 deaths.