Only way you can stop football for 2-4 weeks is cancel the FA cup/League Cup
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[Football] Should This Season Be Suspended?
- Thread starter DumLum
- Start date
blue-shifted
Banned
I posted on here that I was certain they agreed half the games need to be played, but then someone else on here told me that I was wrong. I didn't take offence as my memory is pretty bad, but i'm now about 70% sure that they agreed half the games would need to be played for the season to be completed.
This shouldn't be a problem for the league, as even if we have to lockdown for 3 months, there's enough time to complete the season.
One scenario I was thinking about was that the PL might decide that the most equitable way to do it is have everyone play half their games. That way everyone has played each other once and you wouldn't risk having to abandon with some clubs having played harder games than others.
If this were the case, we have 3 games left to save our season, Wolves, Man City and Leeds. Gulp
I should say, I don't think they will actually do this. The clubs will not want to pay back TV money unless they absolutely have to, so they'll try to get the games played even if they are up to 3 games per week for weeks on end.
blue-shifted
Banned
If only that simple.
They will say, quite fairly, why should the FA and EFL take a financial hit of losing their competition where the PL (a much wealthier body who have no obligations to the wider game) not make any sacrifice at all?
League comes first, if you play less games it will affect the fairness of the league which will have a knock on.
There’s just no more time to fit it in unless the Euros are cancelled completely - you can’t postpone them again.
blue-shifted
Banned
You're thinking about it like a fan.
It's the football administrators who will decide what happens and they think very differently. There are four different bodies here who are involved. The PL, the EFL, the FA and UEFA. They are all competing with each other for relevance and more importantly money and they way they do this is hold fixtures (and get paid by TV companies for those games). None of those bodies are going to unilaterally give up their fixtures for the greater good.
What may happen is the richer bodies may pay off the less rich bodies to give up their fixtures.
Much more likely is that they work out some sort of fudge whereby games still happen but are crammed into a ridiculously short timeframe
I think most bodies would agree that leagues come first - Even UEFA
Without leagues being completed you have issues over promotion/relegation/Qualification for Europe.
Think of all the potential issues they had last year when discussing not finishing the league - clubs losing money and potential legal action.
If the World Cup wasn’t in the Winter you would have more time to play with.
Fulham call off game with Spurs.
blue-shifted
Banned
UEFA are the body that want the games finished most as they get their revenue from the Champions league and the Euros. They couldn't care less if players they haven't hear of have to play 3 games a week for 2 months. They also don't want the big clubs out of the Champ league spots, like Barca, City etc
To me it comes back to why should the FA give up it's games? They have to pay for kids coaching infrastructure, referee training, the upkeep of buildings as diverse as Wembley and the local sunday league shower facilities. UEFA and PL just take the vast sums and give it to players and agents.
FFS. Was looking forward to that one tonight.
This is just how it is going to go from now on isn't it? Soon the PL will become untenable as a competition
Neville's Breakfast
Well-known member
Keeps us out of the bottom 3 though..
But they get to play it once they have potentially strengthened in January. It's all bollocks now.
We should have called off our game against Arsenal and re-scheduled it once we have secured the services of someone who knows what a frigging onion bag looks like.
That actually sounds like a good idea.
It wouldn’t just be PL/UEFA
Football League would put the league first, I’m pretty sure most league clubs would agree with that as we can’t have a repeat of the mess we had last season.
FA had their way earlier this season with 3 pointless international breaks they made worse with adding friendlies to.
I thought if you had 14 non covid affected players the game went ahead?
I’m happy to be corrected on this, but If this is the case I don’t see why they are being cancelled.
oldboyroy
Well-known member
Might be a few weeks of postponed games throughout Jan.
Do you usually struggle with keeping up with current affairs? Nobody is suggesting the season may be cancelled because the Albion couldn't win a raffle at the moment; more because clubs are calling off fixtures owing to covid infections. Newcastle vs Villa the other week. Everton vs Man City on Monday. Fulham vs. Spurs tonight. If more and more fixtures get postponed, how long until the league schedule just falls apart?
Sorrel
Well-known member
A couple of weeks off seems like a good idea to me. Why not suspend things now, then look at how things are going each week and then decide when to restart - it's not as if any ticket holders will cause any problems.