'General consensus' among League Two clubs is to finish season - Thomas

Cobblers chairman Kelvin Thomas says the 'general consensus' among League Two clubs is still to finish the current season, but he admits the coronavirus continues to 'dictate the situation' as the EFL and FA seek a workable solution.

Now three weeks since all fixtures were suspended by the EFL, the season was initially scheduled to resume today (April 3) before the extent of COVID-19 pushed it back until at least April 30.

However, whilst a return on that date appears optimistic, it's still a priority among all the relevant football authorities to get the season up and running again as soon as possible.

"In terms of what's going to happen in the future, to have any view would be slightly ambitious at this point and it'd be a guess rather than anything based on fact," admitted Thomas.

"Myself and James (Whiting) took part in a two-hour call with the EFL on Monday and that was about getting updates on various factors with all League Two chairmen, directors and chief execs.

"What we found was that there's a general consensus and everybody wants the season to be finished and I think everybody will work towards that once more information comes out.

"The reality is that the situation will dictate what happens and it won't be down to people's decisions because the virus dictates everything and we have to be careful when we talk about football because people are being seriously affected and dying from this horrible virus.

"But in general the view is that people want to finish the current season and we would share that view and whatever happens after that, in terms of how we do that, will be dictated by things like lockdown.

"The consensus is definitely to finish the season and the feeling from government is that they also want to get football up and running again and it would be a priority once we get past the peak of this pandemic."

Whilst it's difficult at this stage to make any predictions given the fast-moving nature of the situation, Thomas does feel there needs to be a cut-off point for the current season.

He added: "There will need to be a decision made at some point.

"It would be very difficult to predict that date now because we need to know more and I would assume we won't know that information for a few weeks in terms of the government and the number of cases and whether or not it slows up or speeds up.

"We don't know the impact that'll have but, in reality, we will need a cut-off point and a decision will be made and I think we also need to be conscious of next season as well.

"We don't want to finish this season and impact next season too badly."