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EFL set to suspend season

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  • Can we self isolate the term 'match day'?

  • edited March 2020

    @Commoner said:
    I was thinking about how we could finish this season and then head into next season, assuming clubs survive the next few months.
    It seems we might be able to get up and running again in July/August looking at the China curve and lift in restrictions they have.

    I think it unlikely that football will get going again properly until a vaccine is created, probably in 18 months.

    The government has now changed its model, introducing much greater self-isolation, as we know. This is based on advice from Imperial College epidemiologists, who published their modelling last night. But it's not good news for football clubs:

    Intermittent social distancing –triggered by trends in disease surveillance – may allow interventions to be relaxed temporarily in relative short time windows, but measures will need to be reintroduced if or when case numbers rebound.

    Basically, while we may be able to follow China in driving down infection rates to low levels in the short term, no country is able to eradicate this until a vaccine is available and new outbreaks will flare up across the world and spread quickly until then, causing further periods of prolonged shut-down and isolation.

    That makes it nigh-on impossible to plan for a season long competition. I think the most likely scenario is that we use any period out of isolation in the high summer to finish this season, rattling through the matches at least two per week. And then take a year out of the league, until a vaccine is in place, hopefully starting again in Aug 2021.

    But things are so fluid at the moment that no scenario is particularly plausible. I'm sure a lot of football club boards are awaiting decisions from the government today on supporting workers financially through this - if it's not positive news many clubs may not survive to complete this current season, even if they can.

  • @aloysius said:

    @Commoner said:
    I was thinking about how we could finish this season and then head into next season, assuming clubs survive the next few months.
    It seems we might be able to get up and running again in July/August looking at the China curve and lift in restrictions they have.

    I think it unlikely that football will get going again properly until a vaccine is created, probably in 18 months.

    The government has now changed its model, introducing much greater self-isolation, as we know. This is based on advice from Imperial College epidemiologists, who published their modelling last night. But it's not good news for football clubs:

    Intermittent social distancing –triggered by trends in disease surveillance – may allow interventions to be relaxed temporarily in relative short time windows, but measures will need to be reintroduced if or when case numbers rebound.

    Basically, while we may be able to follow China in driving down infection rates to low levels in the short term, no country is able to eradicate this until a vaccine is available and new outbreaks will flare up across the world and spread quickly until then, causing further periods of prolonged shut-down and isolation.

    That makes it nigh-on impossible to plan for a season long competition. I think the most likely scenario is that we use any period out of isolation in the high summer to finish this season, rattling through the matches at least two per week. And then take a year out of the league, until a vaccine is in place, hopefully starting again in Aug 2021.

    But things are so fluid at the moment that no scenario is particularly plausible. I'm sure a lot of football club boards are awaiting decisions from the government today on supporting workers financially through this - if it's not positive news many clubs may not survive to complete this current season, even if they can.

    This is broadly where my thinking is. Hopefully RC’s pockets can fund paying staff and players until there is some kind of rescue package.

  • @Right_in_the_Middle said:
    Can we self isolate the term 'match day'?

    Only the term "match day" can make that election.

  • Sorry @aloysius once this is 'over' (as with SARS) money for research into a vaccine will disappear as 'that's finished now' and we will all just mosey along until the next person decides to eat a komodo dragon or some such and something else pops up. At soon as the effects seem to be lessening economics will take over and we'll be getting out there being British again forgetting all the unpleasantness. Not eugenics @drcongo but just good old fashioned long-standing Tory neglect of the NHS which is now coming back to bite. Build more ventilators and make it sound like it's the war (Mark Francois and Rees-Moggy will like that)...only every ventilator needs a nurse (because this is not beep beep beep Holby City) and the untrained HCAs they pretend are 'new' nurses for the stats...are not. I quite like this homeworking though.

  • I, too, think I could get used to teaching from home and am waiting for the announcement. I am also, however, grateful to have employment that seems likely to be relatively secure in at least the medium term.

  • Alternatively, cancel next season.
    Finish this season, next season. Then start the proper league up in 2021-22.
    Introduce a new competition for one season only for however long we have left.
    Play 8 leagues of 12. 3 teams in a league from each of the first 4 tiers, plus current top 5 in the conference. One game only to be played.
    Winners of each league go into a last 8 Cup competition - straight knockout.
    2nd and 3rd - go into a last 16 of their own.
    4th and 5th - into their own 16.
    6&7 etc
    8&9 etc
    10, 11 & 12 play for the booby prize.
    Lots of opportunity to play against clubs you normally wouldn't. Tommy tick-offs would be in dreamland.
    Club finances sorted.
    New equal share of sponsorship/TV for everyone and some much needed revenue.
    May then actually sort a lot of lower league finances out to.

  • edited March 2020

    The issue of player contracts expiring on June 30th is the immovable issue with all the above solutions, the major European Leagues have said they'll try and finish the leagues by then, and no comment on what happens when that's not possible.

  • “if” surely?

  • This support is just bringing forward payments to each club. It does not address the huge lack of revenue for smaller clubs, due to loss of gate receipts.

    The last four home games would have generated an additional £350-400k worth of revenue for the club.

    We are very lucky we are now privately owned.

  • In fairness at the moment this seems to be done in the hope/expectation that the season will eventually be played out and therefore minimal loss of gate receipts.

    In the (almost certain in my opinion) circumstances that this won't happen this side of September I would hope that some more viable financial support is made available in a month or two.

  • Confirmed suspended to April 30th now...

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