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Evans: Focus Should Be on How We Finish the Season - Ipswich Town News

Blues owner Marcus Evans has written to Rick Parry, chairman of the EFL, reiterating Town's desire for the 2019/20 season to be played to its conclusion for the sake of sporting integrity.

Last night it emerged that the Blues are among six clubs - Oxford, Peterborough, Sunderland, Fleetwood and Portsmouth are the others - united in their desire to see the campaign - suspended since March 13th due to the coronavirus crisis - completed rather than curtailed as currently appears all but certain.

In his letter to Parry, Evans accepts that the EFL faces challenges when it comes to staging the remaining games but believes that unless the Government dictate that football shouldn’t be played behind closed doors for health reasons, then for sporting integrity all options should be looked at in order to complete 2019/20.

"The focus should be on how we finish the season and not how do we end the season on an incomplete basis,” Evans wrote.

The Blues owner, along with the other five clubs, believes that the financial impact of playing the season to its conclusion against cutting short the campaign at this point should be investigated further.

Today’s League One conference call - secretary Stuart Hayton is Town’s representative - will address the issue but, as previously reported, decisions on whether to cut short the season or how places, promotion and relegation would then be settled are not anticipated until next week as clubs are required to be given five days’ notice before votes on issues of that magnitude take place.

The majority of League One clubs are understood to be in favour of ending the season early as in many cases they simply can’t afford to stage their remaining games behind closed doors.

The huge number of Covid-19 tests that would be required at £150 each add to the costs, while many sides would be forced to take players off furlough in order to play them, further adding to their outgoings at a time when no money is coming in.

Town, 10th in the division, seven points from the top six, have an outside chance of making the play-offs. They have eight games remaining, five at home, three away.

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