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Season extended indefinitely

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  • I think most people on here are assuming that when football starts up again, we'll still have exactly the same number of league clubs able to compete. If that's the case there's an argument for continuing the season from where we left off. But most people making that argument (including, I read this morning, most Premier League teams) are working on the assumption that football will be able to start again in June, autumn at the latest. Personally, I can't see that happening. Even if the social restrictions are relaxed large gatherings will be discouraged or banned. At the very best, teams will have to play behind closed doors. The more pessimistic view, which I currently subscribe to, is that we won't see a competitive match played this calendar year.

    As someone mentioned above, even playing behind closed doors will still probably financially cripple lower league clubs - and that would be the case even if iFollow were able to scale up their platform to allow hundreds of thousands to stream and pay for each match at the same time, and people had confidence in their own finances to want to pay for each match at full price.

    By the time football is able to schedule a new season, I cannot see all 71 clubs still being operational. Supporting player incomes without gate receipts or broadcasting income will be too much for many clubs, not to mention supporting the backroom staff and maintenance of furloughed facilities. I doubt broadcasters are going to provide an advance on future broadcasts either. So the idea that when we're ready to start next season each division will operate with approximately the same clubs, plus and minus those who get promoted and relegated, is fantasy, in my view.

    And if you accept that premise, the principle of finishing this season before beginning the next really becomes null and void.

  • There's very few certaintites with this situation, but one is that sport will be amongst the last areas reintroduced.

    Playing behind closed doors keeps being mentioned, but you still need certain medical resources, and it'd be absolutely unthinkable to tie both those up for a game, and any further risk a player gets smashed and has to go to hospital.

    I don't get people's absolute certainty we'll be back to finish this season. @aloysius makes a brilliant and new approach to why that is.

  • Love your sunny outlook @aloysius!

    I can certainly see that you might be right but feel it’s possible rather than probable.

    My gut feeling is that there will be an aspiration to resume something approaching normality from September with the schools re-opening after the summer and more recreational activities allowed including watching football matches albeit with some travelling restrictions.

    Whether it will prove sustainable or not is another question

  • Though I am fully for finishing, whenever that is, someone's mention (@Norsquarters?l of six tiers makes me think the following would be acceptable if the season did not finish:

    1. All matches and goals are considered to have taken place.

    2. PPG is used, not for promotion and relegation, but to split each division in two for at least obe season. That way, someone like Wycombe would not be punished with the potential for relegation to L2, while someone like Southend would not!be rewarded with the potential (however unlikely) of promotion to the Championship.

  • @aloysius in his characteristic fashion presents a worst case scenario. None of us know what the outcome will be for football or for life in general. Only time will tell.

    Whatever happens one day we will emerge from this. It feels unlikely that the demand for football will not still be there. The stadiums for each of the 71 will still be there. Young men (and women) talented at football will still exist. If absolutely necessary the FA could decree that if any of the existing football club companies cease to be, the existing owners could establish a new company playing at the same ground taking the place of the former entity in the league. The govt could legislate that in that circumstance stadia are taken into community ownership to protect a local football club playing there. Things may be a little different but where there is a will there’s a way.

  • @eric_plant said:

    @floyd said:
    The current season absolutely has to finish, and will, whether that’s in July 2020 or July 2021.

    There are always (always, always) more important things going on than the completion of any given football season. Covid hasn’t changed that, it’s just made us all realize it.

    "realise"

    Either is correct.

  • I think @fame_46 is right...with the world burning I come onto a football forum in order to hear latest casualty rates and people showing a proper respect for the situation we are all in. Posters actually discussing football and the effects this is having on our season is an appalling distraction from the important matters in hand and, if I may say so, unpatriotic. When crisp manufacturers everywhere are adapting their equipment to make ambulances I think @chairboyscentral needs to have a good hard look at himself. (When is the season re-starting again?)

  • edited March 2020

    They pretty much were already weren't they? That's what all leagues should do - effectively commit to finishing but don't worry about when. Although the Premier League seem to think they've got it sussed (hmm).

  • @chairboyscentral said:
    They pretty much were already weren't they? That's what all leagues should do.

    It looks like the first step to following the rest of non league to me.

  • edited March 2020

    @Malone said:

    @chairboyscentral said:
    They pretty much were already weren't they? That's what all leagues should do.

    It looks like the first step to following the rest of non league to me.

    Maybe, but if they decide to do that the EFL aren't bound to follow suit. We shall see...

  • @chairboyscentral said:

    @Malone said:

    @chairboyscentral said:
    They pretty much were already weren't they? That's what all leagues should do.

    It looks like the first step to following the rest of non league to me.

    Maybe, but if they decide to do that the EFL aren't bound to follow suit. We shall see...

    You are quite right.
    It is a bit strange they're coming out this early, and seemingly independently of the pro game, as they need to sync up really!

  • Does anyone know what the split is these days between pro and semi-pro clubs in the National League? I imagine most clubs will want to finish within reason - hence so many lower down signing that letter - but would the pro ones be better placed to push for a conclusion to the season?

  • Rather than expunge all results I don’t really understand why they just don’t declare the season unfinished and publish the final ‘as it was’ table (or adjust by PPG or some mechanism to keep spore people happy).

    Imagine if you made your one and only appearance or scored your only goal in 500 matches only to be told it doesn’t count and will never be shown on any records.

  • edited March 2020

    There's nothing to gain from it and next season with the same teams would just feel really odd imo.

  • Has to be better than just voiding the season. And not so odd for those of us that grew up in the days when the Isthmian League didn’t indulge in this relegation/promotion nonsense.

    (But I’m still just about in favour of still trying to finish the season)

  • @bookertease said:
    Has to be better than just voiding the season. And not so odd for those of us that grew up in the days when the Isthmian League didn’t indulge in this relegation/promotion nonsense.

    What year did they bring in relegation and promotion at that level? That's never crossed my mind.

  • From memory must be mid to late 70s. Every year we played Corinthian Casuals and would win about 7-0 as they were always bottom of the league

  • Can you imagine if they promote two only on PPG, and our failure to get at least a deserved draw against Doncaster sees us miss out?

  • @chairboyscentral said:
    They pretty much were already weren't they? That's what all leagues should do - effectively commit to finishing but don't worry about when. Although the Premier League seem to think they've got it sussed (hmm).

    That report is along the lines of what I’ve been thinking. Testing playing staff and their families and keeping them isolated for two months or so in order to complete the season. All games to be made available live on TV/online, which will obviously appeal to broadcasters and the government alike.

  • edited April 2020

    Having listened to virologists with a certain level of skin in the game, it's becoming pretty clear to me that, no matter when we get past this current period of social restrictions, we will inevitably end up in a new set from October to March. They may not be as comprehensive as this set as a significant proportion of the population will have been exposed to the virus and built up antibodies, so should be able to lead a semblance of a normal life. The NHS will also have significant extra capacity and be better prepared with more ventilators and PPE. But because a vaccine won't be ready to be rolled out until next March at the earliest, social restrictions will be needed to stop the most vulnerable getting this virus when it returns with a vengeance in the winter.

    So even if 50% of the population is immune by then (the sort of figure being suggested by the optimists), large social gatherings will not be able to take place. That means no football matches in crammed stadia for half the season.

    To my mind that gives the FA two options:

    1) finish this season this July to Sep, if allowed to do so. Then suspend the league until August next year, missing a calendar year from the competition. Between March and August look to play some sort of mini-league cup competition to keep clubs ticking over and prepare players for the Euros.

    2) scrap the remainder of this season and urgently negotiate with broadcasters and online platforms to make sure that every match next season can be streamed online or shown on TV, allowing most to be played behind closed doors for six months. And then hope that each club can field a team of players and backroom staff who have been exposed to the virus and built up antibodies, allowing them to escape social restrictions.

    Both options provide huge logistical issues. I think the first option would be the easier to put in place and less risky of the two. But I can't imagine how clubs could survive without six months' income. It's going to be a horrible period seeing which do and which don't.

  • Is the theory that the virus will go away over the warmer drier summer and then return in the colder wetter winter not undermined by its European hotspots being Italy and Spain currently enjoying weather we get in the summer?

  • There may be a slowing of the spread of virus in the summer simply because people tend to spend less time in enclosed spaces.

  • edited April 2020

    Australia is already in summer and it's been a pretty big problem there. Is there no chance that it could just go anyway once there are no new cases? In simple terms, how come some viruses recur and others are one-offs (I'm not scientific at all)?

  • @bookertease said:
    From memory must be mid to late 70s. Every year we played Corinthian Casuals and would win about 7-0 as they were always bottom of the league

    When we won the league in 73/74 St Albans and Casuals were relegated. St Albans didnt return for 12 years, Casuals never have.

  • @DevC said:
    Is the theory that the virus will go away over the warmer drier summer and then return in the colder wetter winter not undermined by its European hotspots being Italy and Spain currently enjoying weather we get in the summer?

    Iran has an awful outbreak and it’s about 45 degrees C

  • @chairboyscentral I have very, very little understanding of what viruses are and how they work, but still probably a bit more knowledge than most because I watch, read and listen to a hell of a lot of science stuff. I spent a couple of hours recently trying to find out what happened to SARS, where did it go. Never found a definitive answer. Viruses are, by almost all definitions of "life", not alive, and yet they kind of behave as though they have agency and because they have RNA / DNA are subject to the same laws of evolution as things that are alive - which is to say that genetic mutations that are beneficial will win out over mutations that are not beneficial.

    The best explanation of what happened to SARS that I could understand was that a virus that kills its host is not a success, as it needs the host in order to propagate. SARS likely mutated to vastly less lethal versions which survived, and the original strain died out because the hosts died.

    So, possibly some mutations of the current virus will mutate in ways that benefit the virus by keeping the hosts alive, but it's also possible (like with Spanish Flu), that one mutation could happen that makes the virus even more contagious. This mutation would spread faster and therefore kill more people than the original, but again, because it's killing its host it's not a long term threat and will eventually die out.

    Someone who paid more attention than me in school can probably correct any errors here.

  • Should see an announcement around PFA agreement for player wage cuts or deferrals today or tomorrow, might be a good indication of wether those with the most money at the top are prepared to sacrifice a bit to help those further down.
    Hope we don't see a blanket percentage that masks huge disposable income of top players.

    Thought Spurs statement yesterday was fairly badly worded and timed, seemed to be : players - not our issue, ordinary staff - take government £, £7m directors - sort of covered under general staff, not really mentioned, sure they are doing community work too which they didn't really mention.

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