Czech Softball to open Extraleague seasons in June

Czech Softball to open Extraleague seasons in June
14/05/2020
The Central European country will open its Men’s Softball Extraleague on 6 June, while the Women’s Softball Extraleague opening day will be on 13 June.

The Czech Softball Association has announced the starting dates of their national leagues, the Men's and Women’s Extraleague competitions, which feature the country’s highest level of competition. The 10-team Men’s Softball Extraleague will open on 6 June, while the eight-team women’s national league will get underway a week later, on 13 June.

Softball in Europe is slowly getting back into action after having been halted completely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In April, the Italian Baseball Softball Federation (FIBS) announced the opening of their 2020 baseball and softball season on 14 June. Now the Czech Republic joins them with the start of their national leagues.

Originally scheduled to begin in the middle of April, the opening day of the Extraleague was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This delay forced Czech Softball to change the tournament system. During the regular season, teams will play only one double header against each other instead of two double headers as originally planned.

Czech Softball will follow all the Government regulations during the season. At the moment the Czech Government allows to practice sport in a group of a maximum of 100 athletes and to organise sport’s events with a maximum 100 participants. In both cases, people have to follow several hygiene rules.

The national governing body will focus on live-broadcasting as many games as possible, in order to allow people to follow the competition without going to the stadiums.

Last year, softball club Žraloci Ledenice won both the men's and women's Extraleague championships.

The men’s national league expands to 10 teams this year, with the inclusion of two new squads.