Here in Belgium, clubs decided to stop the competition and leave the standings just as they were before the corona lockdown. The decision is taken but definitive, there is still some governing body that has to confirm it (but everybody except that it will be confirmed).
Most people in Belgium (me included) think it's a very wise decision, health is the most important factor right now.
We have a very special competition format. Our Jupiler League (first devision) has 16 clubs. They all play each other twice. And then the first 6 ranked clubs play play-offs (the others and some second division clubs contest play-offs too, but nobody cares about these). Before the lockdown, clubs had played 29 of the 30 matches in the regular competition. Before the play-offs it was already obvious that Club Brugge would be champions, they have an advantage of 15 points. So everybody agrees that Brugge are the deserved champions.
Financially, Belgian professional clubs will face a hard time, this was already the case before corona and the lockdown. We have 24 professional clubs (16 in the highest division - called 1A- and 8 in the second - called 1B and a real travesty). Every year in april those clubs have to get a license from the Belgian FA. This license is our form of Financial Fair Play. At the moment 7 clubs will not get a license because they have severe financial problems (once again: before corona). Among them there is one huge club (in Belgium): Standard. Anderlecht passed the test narrowly. That club is ourt Bayern Munchen or Juventus... When push come to shove only 3 Belgian clubs are financially sound: Club Brugge, AA Gent and Racing Genk (my favourite club). They are doing welle because they have a fabulous scouting network and they can sell their best players each year... A club like Genk is the laughing stock of the CL because each time they win the title they loose their best players (in the last year: Samatta, Berge, Trossard, Malinovsky and Pozuelo), but they don't take financial risks. And are a well run club, the same goes for both other clubs.
The clubs like Standard who didn't get a licence can go in appeal before the BAS (that is the Belgian version of the TAS) and until now every club who went in appeal obtained the license, but it seems that now some clubs will disappear (notably Mouscron, a club that is owned by a player's agent). Everybody agrees that Standard will obtain the license, but this does not change the fact that they are in dire straits, financially.
One more thing. UEFA did not agree that our competition stopped. The BElgian FA and the Jupiler League got a letter from UEFA and from the big clubs that they had hoped Belgium would show solidarity. Most footbal lfans were outraged by that letter. Solidarity? Does those clubs show financial solidarity with the clubs from the small market? I don't think so. We have the number one national team in the world for some years now. Yet, all these players play for foreign clubs because of the difference of television money. Solidarity? My ass.
