June 2020: Your guide to the return of football, racing and more
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The sporting world is gradually resuming to some form of normality, with more events being reintroduced throughout June.
Some Football and Horse Racing returned in May, but June could see the action return in the United Kingdom too. We’ve looked at all the sport scheduled to hit our screens throughout the month, and you can check it all out here…
Football
Premier League football is finally returning to our screens. Clubs have been participating in socially distanced training since 17th May, which has since been upgraded to full contact training from 27th May after clubs voted for it.
Pending further government approval, we’ll have two fixtures on Wednesday 17th June with Aston Villa v Sheffield United and Manchester City v Arsenal, before a full run of fixtures between Friday 19th and Sunday 21st June.
All Premier League matches will be shown live, with Sky Sports broadcasting 64 matches, including 25 on free-to-air channels. BT Sport will have 20 fixtures, Amazon Prime showing 4 more fixtures and BBC Sport airing four live fixtures for the first time since the Premier League’s inception in 1992.
The FA Cup has been rescheduled too, with the quarter-finals taking place on Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th June. Semi-finals will now go ahead on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th July, before the final on Saturday 1st August.
The Championship have taken steps to recommence their league season too after it was announced their campaign will resume on Saturday 20th June, aiming of completing the season with the play-off final on or around Thursday 30th July.
The outcome of the League One season is yet to be confirmed. League Two and below have all voted to end their seasons with immediate effect.
The German Bundesliga continues, with every match from the final five matchdays of the season being shown live across BT Sport.
Highlights include Bayer Leverkusen v Bayern Munich on Saturday 6th June at 14:30, before Borussia Dortmund v Hertha Berlin at 17:30.
In Spain, La Liga has been given the green light to continue, with Sevilla’s derby against Real Betis expected to kick things off from Thursday 11th June. Matches will be free to watch on Premier Sports throughout June.
Table toppers Barcelona travel to Real Mallorca to resume their campaign on Saturday 13th June while nearest challengers Real Madrid host SD Eibar on Sunday 14th June.
Italy’s Serie A will resume from Saturday 20th June, after sports minister Vincenzo Spadafora’s approval.
The Portuguese Primera Liga gets underway on Wednesday 3rd June, with selected matches being shown on Premier Sports. Famalicao host FC Porto in the first live game on its return at 21:15.
Horse Racing
The British Horseracing Authority has given the go ahead for racing to resume behind closed doors on 1st June, with Newcastle scheduled to host the first meeting on racing’s return to the UK.
That meeting will be shown on Sky Sports Racing, and that will be followed by the Qipco 2,000 and 1,000 Guineas from Newmarket, scheduled for the weekend of 6th June.
Royal Ascot will stage this year’s Royal meeting behind closed doors. That’s pencilled in to run between Tuesday 16th June and Saturday 20th June.
Racing has slowly been returning across the world, with racing in France and Germany returning in early May. Sky Sports Racing are showing most of the French racing action live, as well as their regular Stateside meetings.
Golf
PGA Tour action will return behind closed doors from 11th June, with The Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in Texas confirmed as the first tour event.
The RBC Heritage event from Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head, South Carolina follows a week later, with tee off scheduled to take place on 18th June.
We’ll end the month with the Travelers Championship from the TPC River Highlands course in Cromwell, Connecticut, scheduled for 25th June. The European Tour are aiming for a July resumption.
Snooker
The Snooker Championship League gets underway from Monday 1st June. 64 players will compete in a round-robin format at Marshall Arena, Milton Keynes for the inaugural event.
World champion Judd Trump, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Mark Selby and Neil Robertson all line-up in the new league, which will be shown on ITV4 until 11th June.
Other sports
There’s no date set for the return of Rugby in the UK yet, but if you’re looking for some Rugby League action, the NRL in Australia returned at the end of May and will be shown on Sky Sports until the grand final, which is set for 25th October.
In Darts, the PDC Home Tour continues into early June with the play-off phase. Playoff Group 7 and 8 compete for semi-final spots on Monday 1st June and Tuesday 2nd June respectively.
That’ll move into the semi-final group stages on 3rd and 4th June, before the Championship group gets underway on Friday 5th June.
Formula One looks set to start slightly later, with bosses looking to get the season underway on Sunday 5th July in Austria.
There’ll be increased safety measures, with two races set to be hosted at each track on consecutive weekends, before continuing across the world and finishing in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. All races will be shown live on Sky Sports F1.
All odds and markets are correct as of date of publication.
