Liga MX cancels 2020 Clausura season due to coronavirus pandemic

Liga MX announced Friday that despite having played 10 of the season's 17 dates, it would declare it over without a victor.

No team will be crowned champions in the Mexican league, with Cruz Azul one point ahead of Leon at the top of the table, but both clubs will qualify for next season's CONCACAF Champions League.

- Stream every episode of 30 for 30: Soccer Stories on ESPN+.

"However, the time of the [pandemic] that we are living through has caused increasing schedule restrictions, which do not allow us to continue the competition without putting at risk the members of this great family".

"It is indisputable that we are experiencing an unprecedented situation in our country, which forces the football industry in Mexico to act with absolute good sense and to respond with unity to the demands that have been presented". The league suspended play March 15, more than two weeks after the first confirmed COVID-19 case in Mexico was announced.

Liga MX had been aiming to get back to the field in early July, and club owners had publicly said that cancellation would badly damage finances. Mexico has a two-seasons-per-year league model.

In mid-April the league had already made a decision to tackle issues of stability by suspending promotion and relegation for its top two divisions for five years.

"Liga MX will define the start date of the 2020 Apertura based on the recommendations of the Federal Health Sector", the statement continued.

Play stopped in the Liga MX in mid-March, and less than a week later the league's president Enrique Bonilla announced he had caught the illness, without serious symptoms.