La Liga knocks down talk of June 20 restart

La Liga has refused to confirm Leganes coach Javier Aguirre's announcement that the Spanish soccer season will re-start on June 20 after being halted for more than three months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"There are no confirmed dates to return to competition," a La Liga spokesman told Reuters on Thursday. "We will begin training sessions and wait for a government decision about established dates. Our intention is to return to competition in June."

Speaking to Mexican website Marca Claro earlier on Thursday, Aguirre said he had been given details of when the campaign would start again and had been informed the season would conclude before the end of July.

"We now have a start date for the league, we begin on June 20 and finish officially on July 26. We will play 11 rounds of matches on Saturdays and Sundays and Wednesdays and Thursdays," said Aguirre, whose Leganes side are 19th in the standings. "La Liga has just told me this and I'm very happy that we now have our training programme scheduled."

Clubs in Spain's top two divisions held obligatory testing for players on Wednesday and many teams are due to begin individual training on Friday.

Germany's Bundesliga announced on Thursday that it will resume action on May 16, making it the first of Europe's top five leagues to resume action.