Green Cross Code Man
Wunt be druv
Personally I'd favour giving Liverpool the title and allowing Leeds and WBA promotion.
All the solutions are far from good.
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[Football] Premier League / Football League attempts to finish the season
- Thread starter Mellotron
- Start date
All the solutions are far from good.
blue-shifted
Banned
Thanks
Willian, the best player there. Though Vertongen, Fraser, Lallana decent players. I'd bet at least half those get new deals.
Anyway, the point is players come and go all the time, through transfer, (or injury or retirement) the teams have 25 man squads. You couldn't say any of those clubs are utterly reliant on those players Let's not be precious about players, they are transient. What matters is the clubs*.
*obvs health etc
Machiavelli
Well-known member
Agreed on your assessment but, note, only Fraser on that list is still young and has the potential for improvement. The others are at clubs big enough such that they're replaceable.
blue-shifted
Banned
Willian and Pedro both good players. But I'll bet there are more games, when neither of those have started than both have. It won't change the essence of Chelsea being Chelsea without them. And if they are that crucial to Chelsea there is a good chance they will be offered and agree a new deal.
The biggest loss on that list is probably Fraser at Bournemouth, i'd bet they would take their chances without him than they would to have the rest of the games declared goalless draws.
Also, you have to consider that some injured players will be back, Kane. who knows, Izquierdo. Players will come and go for whatever reason. We accept transfers in January and to a lesser extent at the start of August. That's football. Still can't believe anyone thinks this is the biggest issue affecting on the integrity of the competition
Green Cross Code Man
Wunt be druv
Who said it was the biggest issue. I don't think it is.
Blue Valkyrie
Not seen such Bravery!
It is not the biggest issue, but I think it is a bigger issue than worrying about legal actions from clubs - which I reckon are flimsy cases at best.
Jimmy Grimble
Well-known member
I’d love to know what legal standpoint Championship clubs would have for suing if the season is voided. Cannot see how they would be able to sue the Premier League.
They'd need to sue the Football League or FA presumably. If they start the process now, they might have the case heard by 2022
Jimmy Grimble
Well-known member
Exactly. And even then what are they going to sue them for? Loss of earnings they would potentially get from the Premier League? Not sure that would stand up in court.
Quite so. And public health is surely more important than football (however much we love the game and the club).
The season should be voided. Players should be smart enough to understand that clubs can't afford to keep paying them their full whack sitting at home and should take a minimum pay cut of 50% (even if our lowest paid player is on 30K a week, I'm sure they could just about scrape by on £15K a week). Clubs that have acquired testing kits should give them up to the NHS immediately.
Football returns when it is safe for it to do so. If that's 2 years down the line then so be it.
Public health is way more important than football.
Badger Boy
Mr Badger
- Jan 28, 2016
- 3,658
Well I, for one, do care about this season. So that's an even score.
Change at Barnham
Well-known member
When Sheffield United sued West Ham for signing Carlos Tevez illegally (and avoiding relegation) didn't that take a couple of seasons before it was judged on and settled?
Is it not the case that the promoted clubs are actually invited to join the PL, the invitation having been voted for by the other PL clubs?
It's just a formality which gets done every season - but is there actually a legal requirement for it to happen? I suspect Leeds and West rom could lose a fair chunk of their transfer budgets for a few seasons if they try going to the courts.
I agree. People forget that the 20 clubs are just members of the premier league, they own it.
The easiest and most straightforward solution is to scrap the lot. It's harsh on the teams pushing to come up or pushing for titles but ultimately there are more important things. If need be, give Leeds and West Brom the parachute payments nobody is getting from the PL next season in lieu of promotion.
For European qualification, keep the same qualifiers as last season (unless Man City's ban is upheld, in which case bump everyone up one from last season). We cannot keep putting it off indefinitely to try and finish this season, there has to be a logical end point. If they can get everything in somehow before the end of June (or July) then so be it, otherwise bin the lot.
For European qualification, keep the same qualifiers as last season (unless Man City's ban is upheld, in which case bump everyone up one from last season). We cannot keep putting it off indefinitely to try and finish this season, there has to be a logical end point. If they can get everything in somehow before the end of June (or July) then so be it, otherwise bin the lot.
Jimmy Grimble
Well-known member
That is my understanding too.
I think you’re probably onto something here. The more you look into the practicalities of finishing this season, the more you realise it’s highly unlikely to happen.
The contract issue, I think, is probably the terminal problem. There are going to be so many complexities around contracts expiring on 30th June that extending the season beyond that point is going to be unviable. Many managers and club chief execs seem to be on board with this theory. Players who have other options lined up, have already been told they’re surplus to requirements or just plain want to leave aren’t going to want to extend, and if you allowed transfers to take place then that completely shatters the integrity of the competition.
There’s no way, given that at the very earliest players will not be able to recommence training for another three weeks, and then need at least four weeks to be anywhere near match fitness, that it can be completed in that window. You’d have less than three weeks to do it - simply not possible.
And even if you could find a way to extend past June (and you’d need at least a couple of months), that would mean not starting the 20-21 season until mid-October at the earliest. The only way to do that, assuming UEFA will be hell bent on staging Euro 2021, would be run a season with fewer games (e.g. you only play each side once). That would have yet another catastrophic effect on club incomes, it doesn’t work.
I think that the sooner official bodies wake up and accept that this season is doomed the better. Then we can deal with the best way to compensate the clubs who had something to lose, and the suggestion of a financial package via unspent parachute money is probably the best option I’ve heard to date.
The issue with promoting and relegating clubs is that it’s too binary. It’s all well and good saying ‘promote Leeds and West Brom’, but then what about Fulham who are nailed on for the play-offs? What about 11th placed Swansea who are only three points off the play-offs? What about other divisions where things are less clear cut?
Parachute payments, I think, are about £50m per club in year one, so there’s a pot of £150m to play with there. Let’s say you divvy that up so that, for example, £135m goes to the Championship, £10m to League One and £5m to League Two. You then distribute that based on each side’s share of probability of being promoted (there are some pretty robust mathematical models out there to do this). Throwing some figures out there, it would mean for example that Leeds would get £50m, West Brom £45m, Fulham £15m and a longer shot like Swansea £1m.
It’s still not fair that the likes of Leeds wouldn’t go up, but we have to accept that little about this virus is ‘fair’. It’s not fair that innocent people are dying, it’s not fair that people are losing their jobs and businesses, it’s not fair that today’s young generation (already far less well off than their parents) are going to have to pick up the tab for this pandemic for the next ten or twenty years.
Football is trivial by comparison. Nonetheless, there still needs to be a solution found. I’m not suggesting the idea I’ve described above is fair; that’s because a fair solution simply doesn’t exist. All we can hope for is to agree on something that is least unfair.
As for Liverpool, well, this whole episode has certainly put the old Bill Shankly quote to bed once and for all. If you go down the probability route then their probability of winning the league is probably about 99.9%, so you could argue it would be unfair to deny them the title. That would however fly in the face of the idea of declaring the season null and void. Them winning the league now would be a damp squib anyhow, and they’d hardly be able to celebrate even if they wanted to. If any club knows misfortune and injustice, it is Liverpool. They’ve overcome bigger injustices than this before, and they’ll do it again - in my opinion, by winning the title next season instead.
Whenever that is.
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Something else to bear in mind is if you do award Liverpool the title, can you guarantee thousands of gleeful fans won't descend on Anfield? We know fans descend on stadiums they know in advance are closed (including flying half way across Europe for international or European matches), I struggle to believe fans wouldn't start congregating in large numbers at the stadium or in the city (and you can forget about social distancing in that scenario). It shouldn't be a deciding factor in anything but it's still something to factor in.
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 36,014
ive been highlighting this for weeks. there nothing in the rules to state it has to happen, just how it happens.
if not seen, UEFA in their glory have seen fit to acknowledge that leagues might not finish in special cases, and not impact qualification. Dutch have a 3 month ban on public events and looking to cancel their season.