May 9 could become the date when the footballing world starts its process towards normality.

In fact, the German Bundesliga is prepared to resume its football activities on that date, pending government approval.

However, football is not set to be resumed only in Germany because the Faroe Islands are also ready to give their greenlight to restart their championship which is played on a year schedule rather than on a season basis like the main European leagues.

The original date for this year’s campaign was pencilled to start for March 8 but after being postponed twice, May 9 has now been selected as the starting date, running until late November with the domestic cup final scheduled for December.

The Nordic nation had to serve a lockdown until a few days ago, with only essential stores opened in bid to control the fast-spreading coronavirus.

The harsh measures, though, paid off as at the time of writing, the Faroe Islands, who has a population of 50,000 people, had only 187 positive cases from almost 7,000 test, according to Leivur Frederiksen, sports journalist from the Faroe Islands.

From those 187 people, only nine remain positive but they are serving quarantine at home meaning that there are no Covid-19 patients in hospitals.

Also, there have been zero deaths. In recent days, the government has relaxed the lockdown measurements a bit as shopping centres have started to reopen while children are attending schools again.

Football clubs have also resumed their training sessions in large groups after having to train in separate groups of four or individually for the past two months.

However, the Faroe Islands FA has still issued a set of guidelines for clubs to apply during their training sessions and on matchdays, which the Sunday Times of Malta got hold of, in order to prevent any rebound cases which would put the country under another severe lockdown.

Most importantly, club members feeling sick should remain at home, this applying for daily activity as well. Should one club member be tested positive, the whole championship might be cancelled immediately.

During training sessions, players will not be allowed to use changing rooms and fitness rooms whereas should there be a meeting held for the team, there could not be more than 10 people attending while applying social distance even though videocalls are still being highly recommended.

Sanitising training equipment is given a  lot of importance while personnel is urged to bring their own water bottles and cleaning their hands before and after every training session.

When it comes to league games, measures about social distancing and sanitising remain unchanged.

The additional guidelines include that handshakes are banned, players cannot spit on the field and all interviews must be held outdoors.

The FA also stated that every club can allow a maximum of 28 people between players and staff in attendance at every game with five match officials at every stadium.

Also, there can be only six ballboys while media are allowed to cover games at the venues.

UEFA duties

Faroe Islands are one of the few UEFA members association that won’t have to select any of their clubs to represent them in the 2020-21 UEFA competitions as their teams have already been assigned their places through last year’s final standings.

KI, who won their 18th national title in 2019, will be playing the UEFA Champions League qualifiers, while B36, NSI and HB will take part in the Europa League.

Maltese clubs could be facing one of these teams in the upcoming European competitions, but it is still yet to be known which Premier League teams will be participating, given that football activities in Malta won’t resume before the start of June.

Ranked 110th in the FIFA rankings, the Faroe Islands are set to face Malta for a third straight qualifying campaign as the two countries were drawn against each other in the 2020-21 Nations League campaign.

The two countries are scheduled to face each other on September 3 and November 17.