TO ensure quality football is played, the Malaysian Football League (MFL) will not rush into restarting the M-League.
The MFL will study several factors before they announce the date of the restart after Covid-19 forced the season to be suspended on March 16.
Initially, the MFL had planned for the season to recommence on Sept 1 and to end on Sept 27.
However, the government announced on Friday that contact sports' competitions can resume on Aug 15, and if the M-League restarts on the said date, this will take away two weeks from the teams' preparations.
"We need to make sure all the teams have enough time to prepare their players so that we can see quality and a competitive challenge from the teams once the league resumes," said MFL chief executive officer Datuk Ab Ghani Hassan.
"We will also have to take into consideration the injury risks if we rush to restart the league when the players aren't at their physical best.
"Besides that, the teams also need to prepare their home venues thoroughly, doing disinfection, sanitisation and other things."
Though M-League teams can conduct contact training from tomorrow onwards, Ghani said: "For the time being, MFL are not allowing teams to host friendly matches. We want them to focus on following the second phase training involving SOP.
"We will consider allowing teams to have friendly matches at the right time."