Coronavirus: 2020 NRL season suspended indefinitely

The NRL have suspended the 2020 season just two rounds into the season.

Today the chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission announced the suspension, due to the health and safety risk of players in the competition.

"As we said from the outset, the paramount consideration in our decision making process has always been the safety and helath of our players," V'landy's said.

"Unfortunately that's taken a dramatic turn today. Our pandemic expert and biosecurity expert, have said due to the rapid rate of infection, we can no longer guarantee the safety of our players to continue to play.

"Accordingly we are suspending the season. We aren't going to put a time period to the suspension, we are going to look at every available option to us to recommence the season... every option is still on the table."

NRL CEO Todd Greenberg said the choice to shut the season down because the conditions "had shifted so dramatically and exponentially".

V'landys said one of the reasons was to allow the New Zealand Warriors to return home. He also said conditions changed very quickly.

It follows weeks of uncertainty around whether the competition would continue. The Vodafone Warriors made the decision late last week to base themselves on the Gold Coast for the foreseeable future to continue to compete in the competition. 

The NRL had received plenty of backlash however, with some calling on Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to step in. Following the announcement that the competition would be suspended, one person called it 'sanity prevailing'.