On paper the Red Stripe Premier League (RSPL) was set to kick off mid-October, but with the recent spike in positive COVID-19 cases around the island it is unlikely the nation’s top club football competition will start in the next five to six weeks, says Jamaica Football Federation’s (JFF) General Secretary Dalton Wint.

There was an earlier pronouncement that the RSPL would have kicked off on October 16, but the JFF’s top administrator said that, coupled with the explosion in new cases, the sport administrators were also awaiting approval of a protocol they had submitted to the Government.

“The start date is still out there for October 16,” Wint told the Jamaica Observer in a recent interview, “but with the spike I am not sure the Government will approve the protocol that we sent in. We had sent a draft protocol for the resumption of the league, but I don’t know if that will be approved and we can get the league started.”

The 2019-2020 season was cancelled in May and declared null and void after it was put on pause in March out of concern over the novel coronavirus pandemic that had seen the suspension of just about all sporting activities on the island.

Eight more sets of games were left to be played in the third round of the competition when the plug was pulled and the decision was taken to keep all 12 teams that had participated in the 2019-20 season for the upcoming season.

— Paul Reid