[Sport] The French NHL announces a 'plan B' in case of excess matches postponed by Covid-19

[#Steeven.™]

After the first cases that occurred in the Champions League and in the Asobal League, the French Ligue Nationale de Handball announced this Monday after its General Assembly a 'plan B' in case of a substantial accumulation of postponed matches in the two men's domestic competitions caused due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The LNH, which encompasses the two professional handball leagues in its country, the Lidl StarLigue and the Proligue, seeks to anticipate a possible worsening of the health situation in France in order to avoid jeopardizing sports equity between clubs if development of their respective competitions does not run normally. For this reason, a series of extraordinary measures were adopted in its internal regulations.

The first is that to validate the league title, it will be necessary to play at least 25 matches out of the 30 planned, since this edition has sixteen clubs, two more than in previous campaigns. In addition, if the end of the League is reached with the required minimum number of days held and a team ends with fewer matches to its credit, a weighted average will be taken to determine its final position in the table.

But if the arrival of December 21st has not played at least ten of the fourteen fixed days, the regular league format will be changed. Then, they would go on to play in four groups of four teams each, round trip, from February 2021, taking into account their classification prior to the proposed deadline and that coincides with the stoppage of the European leagues due to the dispute of the Egypt World Cup next January.

Finally, the four best classified in each group would play a final phase (semifinals, final, and third and fourth place) to roundtrip, from which the champion will emerge. But the second, third and fourth of each table will also play a phase with the same system from which a final classification will come out, with the rest of the European places and relegation at stake. If this alternative formula could not be completed, the championship would not be valid as it was not approved.