Football and the Coronavirus

Don
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I linked the Independent article earlier, it states that:

There are a minority of clubs keen to declare the season null and void and start again after the summer. Figures involved in the talks suggested that this is “unlikely”

14 PL clubs would need to agree to it and reportedly as things stand it's only Spurs and West Ham pushing for it, obviously this is nothing to do with West Ham being in a relegation battle and Spurs likely to miss out on the CL.
 
Soldato
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I cant see man city agreeing with it

or arsenal/sheff utd/west ham/Watford/man utd

if they did give it Liverpool it will always say

Premier league champions 2019/2020**

**Not a full season ;);)
 
Don
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My guess is UEFA could step in the contract situation. The meeting next week should provide some direction I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that! I can imagine it might get a little heated.

There's no simple solution. If Independent story is accurate and we're not going to see any football until late summer then things become a huge mess and numerous clubs across Europe face going bust. If things really did get that bad then my half thought through idea about changing the calendar to run until November may actually be the only solution. That's far from simple though with contracts running until the end of June and the difficulties in changing the calendar back after the 2022 WC but it allows Leagues to be finished without bankrupting 50% of football clubs.
I cant see man city agreeing with it

or arsenal/sheff utd

if they did give it Liverpool it will always say

Premier league champions 2019/2020**

**Not a full season ;);)
Could be worse, it could say "9th**" next to our name.

I'm not sure City, as a club if not their supporters, would argue but there's numerous clubs that would and that's one of the challenges that the League faces if it cannot complete the remaining fixtures. If you declared the League null and void you'd have just as many objections with Leicester, Wolves, Sheffield Utd and Man Utd objecting, then of course all the sides in the Championship that have half a chance of being promoted.

edit: Another possible solution would be some sort of play-off system for the key positions. Obviously Liverpool would be crowned champions but maybe there's a mini group between Chelsea, Utd, Wolves, Sheffield Utd and maybe even Spurs, with some sort of handicap system to reflect the current points differences. Similarly with West Ham, Watford, Bournemouth and Villa for the last 2 relegation spots.
 
Don
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You can see how bored some fans are with their team's performances when they take so much happiness from some asterisks :p

Anyway, I'm concerned for the Championship, even if/when the season resumes, it could be a killer for the players to get going again, especially as we're on a such a good run.
 
Don
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You can see how bored some fans are with their team's performances when they take so much happiness from some asterisks :p

Anyway, I'm concerned for the Championship, even if/when the season resumes, it could be a killer for the players to get going again, especially as we're on a such a good run.
@The_One realises that Arsenal won't qualify for Europe at all if the season plays out or if the current standings are used and is hoping a null and void season would at least get them back in the Europa and if City's CL ban stood, potentially back in the CL through the back door. Anything but a null and void season and Arsenal are on the slippery slope to becoming Aston Villa, minus the European Cup of course.
 
Soldato
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The Independent reporting that we might not see any football again until September:

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...-champions-europa-cobra-meeting-a9401466.html

Some other key points covered in the article:
  • If the season is delayed this long it leaves 3 options, 1) just finish the season as and when you can, 2) season ends in May and current standings are used for promotion, relegation etc, 3) season declared null and void.
  • Option 3 from the above is seen as unlikely and that and option 2 both risk legal challenges.
  • Huge financial implications if the season is not finished, with lots of lower league sides facing bankruptcy
  • UEFA meeting on Tuesday might prove key to deciding what will happen.

Contracts run until the end of June and one journo has already said that all PL contracts have a 28 day emergency clause in them that would allow them to be extended for the short-term.

edit: I wonder if the 2022 WC creates an opportunity for the calendar to be changed? The WC is due to be held from November to December. If the season could be finished by November, Euros then get played in November - December, we then have a close season and then next season begins in the new year taking us through to November. Rince and repeat the next season leading you straight into the WC.

The obvious issue to the above is how you then move back to an August - May calendar from there.
English football is suspended short term, Euro's delayed a year. Prem league / championship etc get played out over late spring / summer. Short preseason, start new season in August as usual.

It's not rocket science.
You do know that going by China graph from this virus, once we reach peek, it would take 10 to 12 week's for the curve to start going down and that's with a full lock down.


Your basically looking at around June until that happens here in the UK.

No chance of any games being played until then at the earliest.

And then we'll probably be back to square one come Oct or Nov when a new wave of this virus occurs
 
Man of Honour
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players contracts end 1st june also

Pretty sure it is standard for contracts to run to end of June. One of the reasons the window doesn't open until July and why you can't sign a 6 month in advance pre-contract agreement with a player who's contract is expiring until the preceding January.
 
Soldato
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If we do go for heard immunity, the smart thing to do is to leave the country and go and chill somewhere less effected, and the Premier league players have the money to do that
 
Soldato
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Yeah even Arsenal could be 5 points off 4th if they win their game in hand and with 9 games to you could certainly argue they could make it too. Whatever they do its pretty certain that few teams will be happy with it.

EDIT

Think i missed a page out, this is in response to someone ages ago...
 
Don
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If the season got going by June you could still finish it by the end of July. Maybe start new season a month later and have it run a little further into 2021?
Given how quickly things have escalated it's nigh on impossible right now to guess at when we might be back playing. A lot will also depend on UEFA's decisions on Tuesday. Even them postponing the Euros may not give us enough time to finish domestic Leagues if they insist on the 20/21 season starting on time with qualification rounds for the CL etc starting in late July.

edit: there's a million and one different possibilities though which could effect various ideas. We could end up with a 22 or 23 team League to prevent law suits from Championship clubs, that in turn would make delaying the start of next season near impossible for example.
 
Associate
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28 Feb 2004
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I haven't had time to read all of the posts in the thread, so sorry if this has been covered already. If they decided to end the season as things currently stand, the only fair way to do that is re-work the league tables based on points per game average, as some teams have played less games. I also think they would need to replace goal difference/goals scored with the points per game average of the teams on the same points from games against each other, like they do in international competitions. If they do that, then the final Premier League table would look like this:
  1. Liverpool
  2. Man City
  3. Leicester
  4. Chelsea
  5. Man Utd
  6. Sheff Utd
  7. Wolves
  8. Arsenal
  9. Spurs
  10. Palace
  11. Burnley
  12. Everton
  13. Newcastle
  14. Southampton
  15. Brighton
  16. West Ham
  17. Watford
  18. Bournemouth
  19. Villa
  20. Norwich
 
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