Galaxy’s Te Kloese unsure how full MLS season will be completed

LA Galaxy general manager Dennis te Kloese believes completing the full Major League Soccer season as scheduled is going to be “very challenging.”

The league’s 25th season is currently on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world and with individual U.S. states (as well as Canada) giving out differing decrees on how long sports events will be suspended, getting all the teams going again at the same time could be difficult.

“The idea to keep alive that there’s going to be a full season, I think, is an idea that everybody is given,” Te Kloese told the L.A. Times. “Obviously the motivation and hope is to get everybody done.

“That’s going to be very challenging.”

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Te Kloese pointed to the long-distance travel involved in MLS compared to other leagues around the world. He also stated that the fact the league has the rest of 2020 to work out a schedule after the current crisis ends is an advantage.

“Being realistic, within the country there’s different issues,” he said in the same interview. “For a league that’s so spread out, there’s a lot of travel involved. There’s a lot of restrictions in different parts of the country.

“It makes it a challenge to generalize things and it makes it a challenge to come to a conclusion that you can put everybody together and just play as normal.”

Te Kloese also said the option of playing behind closed doors is something “everybody is looking into because you have to.”

MLS was suspended on March 12, with the original month-long suspension extended until at least May 10.