[Football] Premier League / Football League attempts to finish the season

[crodonilson]

The governments stance that they want football back asap "to lift the nations spirits" was truly an unbelievably TRITE statement to come out with. It was almost Trump-esque in its idiocy.

Nobodies spirits are going to be lifted by seeing a load of games behind closed doors in sterile, silent, empty neutral venues, especially when we've got 600-700+ dying from this thing every day. And those 'spirits' will only plummet even further when some players inevitably test positive, and the whole ridiculous circus has to be binned off again for the foreseeable.

The sooner this season is voided the better IMO. At least then we can make a clean break, move on and start planning for when football can restart properly within a more realistic timeframe, instead of trying to invent some kind of hybrid mess of a competition to sort out the fag-end of this one.

Next season will be the same sterile, empty, neutral venues though. So what will give if clubs have no revenues coming in until, realistically a vaccine is found and footballers continue to expect at best a small wage deferral?

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

Next season will be the same sterile, empty, neutral venues though. So what will give if clubs have no revenues coming in until, realistically a vaccine is found and footballers continue to expect at best a small wage deferral?

Then unfortunately footballers will have to live in the real world like the rest of us who are furloughed and don’t know if they have a job to go back to. I love football, but come on, many have been overpaid for a long time. Clubs who have overspent have no one but themselves to blame chasing promotion etc etc, yes some clubs will struggle and it’s not fair, but life isn’t and good people are dying through no fault of their own.

Perspective is required

 

[atomised]

In my opinion this season will be abandoned, and next season will not start for months if at all.

But if next season doesn't start then that's football done for good because once this season is abandoned the next season whenever it starts will be the next season be it 20/21 or 21/22

 

[crodonilson]

Then unfortunately footballers will have to live in the real world like the rest of us who are furloughed and don’t know if they have a job to go back to. I love football, but come on, many have been overpaid for a long time. Clubs who have overspent have no one but themselves to blame chasing promotion etc etc, yes some clubs will struggle and it’s not fair, but life isn’t and good people are dying through no fault of their own.

Perspective is required

I agree with much of what you say but the numbers are eye watering. The average first team EPL player earns £61,000 per week. Given an average squad size is 24 that equates to 480 players, which is a total weekly wage cost of £29 million for PL clubs. Each month that goes by that's over £120m in wages alone in totality that clubs will need to find, without any TV revenue, no matchday revenue and the bulk of their sponsors will be probably suffering too and not getting anything for their sponsorships. For the sport to survive the shoe must go on to some extent through this period which isn't going away soon. Football will ultimately need to recalibrate itself in the post corona world, which hopefully will mean a more sensible approach and an end to the be all and end all being money.

 

[Weststander]

Next season will be the same sterile, empty, neutral venues though. So what will give if clubs have no revenues coming in until, realistically a vaccine is found and footballers continue to expect at best a small wage deferral?

Yep, the 2020 football close season is purely in the minds of football people, and certainly no watershed moment in the lifecycle of the pandemic.

Unless a vaccine has been widely administered, we won’t see full football stadia until possibly August 2022. Due, not least, to transport to/from stadia, concourses, turnstiles, loos, stairwells and the impossible logistics of people passing each other in a row of 28 seats.

As a result the next 2019/20, 2020/21 or 2021/22 football we see will be on TV. Under the “insurmountable” and “ludicrous” new conditions challenged in great detail in this thread.

I presume that next season will also be played at a select group of 8 to 10 neutral stadia to reduce any chance of fans congregating, the grounds will be largely based on a rating from the police and the Sports Grounds Safety Authority.

 

[Weststander]

But if next season doesn't start then that's football done for good because once this season is abandoned the next season whenever it starts will be the next season be it 20/21 or 21/22

Next season can’t start, can it? All the PL’s ideas of face masks, mass and constant testing of all club staff, hundreds still required at behind closed doors matches, a contact sport so impossible to distance ...... have all been laughed out of town throughout this thread. Those same laughable ideas will still be laughable if they apply to another season.

 

[Jimmy Grimble]

This. If in June - players must wear face masks, socially distance, with the huge issues of 500 people still being required at behind closed doors games, the problem of unwanted fans gathering outside grounds drawing in vital police resources, and in aggregate football personnel be tested multi-10,000’s times; then those very same “insurmountable” problems will exist in August, September and October.

A fully tested and widely available vaccine, or 85% herd immunity, are both a long away off.

What’s football to do about season 2020/21?

I do get where you’re coming from, but do you personally not have a cut off line where you think this has gone on too long for it to be the same season?

Say hypothetically football can resume with the necessary assurances in November. Do you finish 19/20 or is time to start 20/21?

Personally, I think once we’ve gone past the contact expiration date it has to be a case of void and look at starting again. That issue combined with the change to neutral venue grounds is enough to undermine the integrity of the competition for me.

 

[GT49er]

For those of you writing off this season, given this isn't going away for a long time, when do you feasibly think next season will start? How can we overcome all of the issues currently being put up as reasons we can't finish the current season, and how financially will/can clubs bridge the financial gap that a loss of TV and gate revenue presents, especially given footballers are trying their damnedest not to take any sort of pay cut?

No idea when next season will start - but that's got nothing to do with voiding this season. Once 2019-20 is voided, clubs will know where they stand for next season, whenever that is, and start planning for it.
Clubs will suffer financially, and sadly some will go to the wall - but that's not going to be helped by any crackpot notions of "We have to finish this season before we can start next season". Bolleaux! We don't have to! The EPL, and everyone else with crackpot ideas for finishing the season are either playing a long game, hoping the Government will step in so it becomes Force Majeur (no legal repercussions in that case), or they're living in cloud cuckoo land.

 

[GT49er]

I do get where you’re coming from, but do you personally not have a cut off line where you think this has gone on too long for it to be the same season?

Say hypothetically football can resume with the necessary assurances in November. Do you finish 19/20 or is time to start 20/21?

Personally, I think once we’ve gone past the contact expiration date it has to be a case of void and look at starting again. That issue combined with the change to neutral venue grounds is enough to undermine the integrity of the competition for me.

Absolutely. That has to be the cut-off date for the season to be voided.

 

[Weststander]

I do get where you’re coming from, but do you personally not have a cut off line where you think this has gone on too long for it to be the same season?

Say hypothetically football can resume with the necessary assurances in November. Do you finish 19/20 or is time to start 20/21?

Personally, I think once we’ve gone past the contact expiration date it has to be a case of void and look at starting again. That issue combined with the change to neutral venue grounds is enough to undermine the integrity of the competition for me.

I do get all that. I’m sure we’ll know soon enough.

2019/20 football matches won’t be played next autumn, I think we can all agree.

I’m just more patient on this and very open minded. By contrast, someone even posted in this thread that they “can’t stand the uncertainty of it all, it’s doing their head in” (wanting season to be 2019/20 cancelled in April). A First World issue just now, shirley.

Then, when 95% here get their wish of the season cancelled, there’ll be another set of arguments eg the PL may well not null and void, so deciding title, CL, relegation and promotion by some criteria. Then the anger about 2020/21 being played in empty neutral stadia, with face masks. Some teams hit by covid second wave break outs, and that being unfair to results. You can just see it, can’t you?

 

[Weststander]

Absolutely. That has to be the cut-off date for the season to be voided.

Not all nations are going down the void route, as they’re awarding the champion, CL, relegation and promotion places eg France.

 

[Jimmy Grimble]

I do get all that. I’m sure we’ll know soon enough.

2019/20 football matches won’t be played next autumn, I think we can all agree.

I’m just more patient on this and very open minded. By contrast, someone even posted in this thread that they “can’t stand the uncertainty of it all, it’s doing their head in” (wanting season to be 2019/20 cancelled in April). A First World issue just now, shirley.

Then, when 95% here get their wish of the season cancelled, there’ll be another set of arguments eg the PL may well not null and void, so deciding title, CL, relegation and promotion by some criteria. Then the anger about 2020/21 being played in empty neutral stadia, with face masks. Some teams hit by covid second wave break outs, and that being unfair to results. You can just see it, can’t you?

I don’t think there will be much anger about 20/21 if the authorities have very clear guidelines and protocols for how the season would operate. Although some would moan, I think there would be more acceptance than anger.

 

[Mayonaise]

Not at all happy with this neutral venue idea they are touting. If they are committed to finishing this season to protect the integrity of the competition then they need to impact next season rather than fudge this one.

 

[Perfidious Albion]

More talk of ‘Project Restart’ in today’s papers. But really?
Neutral grounds, face masks, closed doors.. Glenn Murray has called it farcical, Aguero admits to being scared for his family.
It seems the players don’t want it....The fans would rather draw a line on the season and start again when we can do it properly.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

More talk of ‘Project Restart’ in today’s papers. But really?
Neutral grounds, face masks, closed doors.. Glenn Murray has called it farcical, Aguero admits to being scared for his family.
It seems the players don’t want it....The fans would rather draw a line on the season and start again when we can do it properly.

The papers, like the TV companies, are desperate for the season to re-start. It will give them something else to talk about and get more online clicks.

 

[southstandandy]

Not at all happy with this neutral venue idea they are touting. If they are committed to finishing this season to protect the integrity of the competition then they need to impact next season rather than fudge this one.

Totally agree with you on this one. Ridiculous idea in my opinion. Also on this point the talk has been of having 10 neutral venues to finish the season, but what about the Championship and Leagues 1 and 2 ? Do their tentative plans include all of their fixtures being played at limited neutral venues? All the talk so far has been on how the Premier League can finish. There are other divisions and clubs too!

Not that I think that the above idea will happen as many have said we only need one situation like with Cologne in Germany to throw everything back into chaos - as if it wasn't already.

 

[Super Steve Earle]

Here's my take on things.
Season 2019/20 won't be completed. Null and Void or Pools Panel Guess the Result outcome. Fans don't want football back yet, they want healthy and safe families. Oliver Dowden is clearly a Sports Minister who thinks football fans are just a bunch of working class thickos who can't see beyond getting their sport fix back. News for you Oliver, I haven't heard one Albion fan say they give a toss about the return of football. Frankly, I would be more concerned if some kind of fake football option behind closed doors is initiated and results applied to the current season. They might as well preserve the integrity of the competition with a tiddleywinks championship at neutral venues. It would be just as meaningful or meaningless. But like any other club near the bottom of the Premier League, there is no solution other than a full return to the old normality that could allow me to accept my club being relegated. Contracts won't be renewed and players won't be signed for 2020/21 as clubs realise they won't be able to pay them and the season may not happen. There is unlikely to be a Covid-19 vaccine for a few months. In my opinion all contact sport needs to be on hold until there is a vaccine for players, staff and fans. That's a reality the government and certainly the Premier League will eventually have to acknowledge and there is a high likelihood of no football next season either.

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

The papers, like the TV companies, are desperate for the season to re-start. It will give them something else to talk about and get more online clicks.

Yes, it's just filling blank sports pages with speculation and talking points - no real information can be got from it.

 

[Chicken Run]

Here's my take on things.
Season 2019/20 won't be completed. Null and Void or Pools Panel Guess the Result outcome. Fans don't want football back yet, they want healthy and safe families. Oliver Dowden is clearly a Sports Minister who thinks football fans are just a bunch of working class thickos who can't see beyond getting their sport fix back. News for you Oliver, I haven't heard one Albion fan say they give a toss about the return of football. Frankly, I would be more concerned if some kind of fake football option behind closed doors is initiated and results applied to the current season. They might as well preserve the integrity of the competition with a tiddleywinks championship at neutral venues. It would be just as meaningful or meaningless. But like any other club near the bottom of the Premier League, there is no solution other than a full return to the old normality that could allow me to accept my club being relegated. Contracts won't be renewed and players won't be signed for 2020/21 as clubs realise they won't be able to pay them and the season may not happen. There is unlikely to be a Covid-19 vaccine for a few months. In my opinion all contact sport needs to be on hold until there is a vaccine for players, staff and fans. That's a reality the government and certainly the Premier League will eventually have to acknowledge and there is a high likelihood of no football next season either.

Can you explain why you think the Sports Minister thinks football fans are “Working Class Thickos” ?




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[Horses Arse]

Can you explain why you think the Sports Minister thinks football fans are “Working Class Thickos” ?




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It's more basic than that - this government has made such a mess of governing that they are desperate for a distraction.

They think that the British public are thickos and that they'll be even more forgiving of their incompetence if sporting events re start.

The tragedy is that they are correct. The only thing they've got right is an appreciation of how stupid and gullible the public are.

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