Gab Marcotti and Julien Laurens ask whether UEFA were right to suggest the season could already be over. (2:14)

Think of it as football's Y2K, the legal bug in the system that could -- if unaddressed -- unleash havoc if 2019-20 competitions continue past June 30.

More than one out of five players in Europe's Big Five leagues -- English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga, French Ligue 1 -- would, legally, disappear from club rosters come July 1 when their contracts expire or when their loan deals come to an end. FIFA have assembled a working group to deal with the issue and a proposal, seen by ESPN, outlines some potential solutions. And when UEFA holds video conferences with member associations and other stakeholders on Wednesday, it will be on the agenda.

If a solution isn't found, it's hard to see how competitions can continue into July, something that may be necessary if the coronavirus pandemic doesn't abate in many nations. On the other hand, the proposed fixes in the FIFA document open up a Pandora's box of other issues that could tie everything up in legal red tape.

Q: OK, let's start at the beginning. Who is affected and why?

A: Based on available contract information, it's at least 500 players from the five leagues mentioned above. That's more than one-fifth of the ones who have played this season. Some clubs have as many as 17 players in those circumstances: They would physically struggle to put out a team without them.

Some 270 of those players are on contracts that expire on June 30, 2020, while the rest are on loan from other team and those agreements also end on June 30, which means their registration goes back to their parent clubs.

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Q: Why does all this happen on June 30?

A: Because that's the standard date on which contracts end in most leagues. And it makes sense because the FIFA transfer window opens the following day, on July 1.

Q: Which leagues are most affected?

A: La Liga would lose 24.6% of their players, Serie A 26%. In the Premier League it's less, 12.9% of players are affected, but it hits certain teams far more than others: Newcastle would lose nine players, for example; Leganes, 14, SPAL, a whopping 17, and Union Berlin, 12.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has a proposal to offset some of the major issues around ending the 2019-20 season past June 30, the typical end date for player contracts or loan deals. But will any of them work? FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images

Q: OK, so how are FIFA going to address this?

A: Well, the proposal in the working paper seen by ESPN lays out some guiding principles for countries to follow. It's the typical situation where you don't need to follow them, but if you don't you risk being out of step with the rest of the world and hurting your club. They're also generally common sense.

The single biggest proposed change is that all contracts set to expire on June 30 would instead expire on the final day of the 2019-20 season, whenever that day is in an individual country. For some leagues, pandemic permitting, that may mean July. For others, it could be as late as August or September. Obviously, national leagues will decide those dates in accordance with their government and health authorities.