Next season kicks off in July
I know it's so they can hold their filthy lucre-making bunfest in Qatar in the middle of winter but kicking off an English football league season in July stinks. Schools will barely have broken up and even more people will miss games due to holidays. Still, progress, eh.
0
Comments
Ridiculous stuff. Will L1 and L2 have to pause too? Not that it will affect us in the Championship if they do...
Hadn’t really appreciated how much the awful Qatar World Cup will affect us all. Starting the season in July is ludicrous and having a month off in November is unthinkable.
Just checked and L1 and L2 will play as normal. Hopefully we are in the Championship and the break falls during our usual "swoon" (which may have come early this year).
Either way, the Qatar WC is a poor decision that keeps on taking.
Can't believe that the world Cup hasn't been taken off them
I am trying to.ignore the whole thing. If that fiasco is not an indicator of how corrupt and morally bankrupt FIFA is, I'm not sure what is.
This is crazy, really crazy…
No big deal really is it? Things never settle down in attendance terms until mid September normally anyway. There will be World Cup Football up to (almost) Christmas as well! It's just different, that's all. (I reserve the right to come back here and moan if I don't like it though!)
If the EFL season starts on July 30th I wonder if it might be worth considering playing a few matches on Friday (or even Saturday) evenings? If we end up with a heatwave as it’s high summer it could be unbearable for both players & spectators alike at 3pm.
The fact that 2,000 workers (mostly migrant labourers with few rights) have died building the stadia for this wretched World Cup seems to being overlooked by those with vested interests. Imagine the outcry if the same number had died building the new Wembley Stadium? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
The fact there will be no PL or EFL games in November will be a great opportunity to go & watch some grassroots football. I wonder if Notts County’s record attendance might be under threat then?
Not that I'm a massive fan of the idea, but isn't it only a week earlier than the season would have started anyway?
Yes, but the season kicks off too early as it is - used to be second weekend of August, then became first. For those of us with school-age kids it makes a big difference between seeing and missing games early on.
I don't think that L1 or L2 should be that affected and come to think of it, I don't think Championship clubs will be either as the elite international players will be playing in the higher leagues.
I reckon that FIFA/FA should increase the players being called up threshold for games to be postponed during this time so that some clubs don't have lots of games to catch up on at the end of the season.
The EFL normally starts in the first week of August (which is still WAY too early) so I agree with you. It's becoming silly as in several years time, whats to say that the close-season will only be 2-3 weeks and Football will be a year round sport? All amateur football (playing on the rye) has a good 3-4 month break (depending on Level).
I wonder if there will be / has been a link between player's mental health and the season lengths/games played in a season? If Heading is being looked at, this will be the next thing
I absolutely agree, and if it is anything more than an irritating one off, or they try and make out retrospectively that it was such a success that it should continue, then there will quite rightly be uproar. The Qatar World Cup and everything about it is an abomination, but I'm not sure starting the season a week early is something to dwell on too much. With regards to families missing games in the summer, I think clubs should acknowledge this and factor it in to season ticket deals or offers later in the season in some way.
Do you do all the away games as well?
For home only supporters, there must be 2 or 3 weeks over the summer holiday still that has no home game?
Admittedly which games anyone is away for over the summer will always be a bit of a lottery - especially since holidays are generally booked before fixtures come out - and I'm comfortable with that. But starting the season even earlier just makes it even more likely people will miss more games.
If there is a retrospective view that the early season start was a success, it will be the catalyst for a Winter break
Winter Break will equal the death of the English game itself. No fans want it, no clubs want it (as the season will be very congested at the beginning & end of the season) and the TV companies don't want it because there will be 2-4 weeks of no football that people are paying for.
The club should give the season ticket holders an option of trading in the games that they know they'll be away, for tickets to one of the Cup competitions League / FA Cup (not including the Pizza trophy) if they are at home. If the club is away or knocked out then the club should have another back-up idea.
When would you have a mid-Winter break. In this country you could have January off then get hit by blizzards in February. The weather is so unpredictable in this country a mid-Winter break seems ridiculous.
I believe that on average it is more likely to snow at Easter than at Christmas.
If it was up to me the next World Cup would still make place in the winter as planned, but played across grounds in the Scottish Highland League. Let's see how Neymar gets on at Claggan Park.
Edited my post as just read @A_Worboys way more concise version.
Simply that - you pick 2 weeks off artifically, what happens if you have another 2 weeks enforced weather break.
It's designed for the premier league, not lower leagues, we all know that.
I'm still not sure it'll work. The likes of Sky, Amazon and BT have too much say in the matter and if they don't have football to show, they will struggle to fill the time.