Premier League officially postponed until 17th of June

[IamSpurtacus]

The Mayor of NY, Bill de Blasio just announced all non-essential permitted events in the city will be canceled for the month of June.

I will eat my shoe if the premier league can be completed by June 30th, one of the proposed cut offs.

I cannot imagine for a second the league will be completed, despite the wishful thinking and misinformation coming out

 

[whitesocks]

Karren Brady stated in her ‘Sun’ column today The impact/concern of injuries. What hospital do you take them to as NHS and private hospitals inundated dealing with Covid-19. There is then impact of self-isolation issues of playing staff etc. 2 metres apart non-contact etc. The actual fitness of players. Testing of every single staff (approx 500) per team. Then their families coming into contact. Then you have hotels they stay at, and their staff. In other words unworkable.

The FA should be changing their script and be more transparent to the fans. Without fans you have no sport. Removing fans you have no real sport in essence. Playing behind closed doors isolates fans, and creates other problems. Isolating players with not much considered regard to their detriment is deplorable. To even consider continuing in this pandemic is unethical to be polite. Humanity is more important. And I say the same to every country and sporting events in particular. The greed of man is more important than the life of man.

I suspect she'd come out with loads of reasons why it was workable if WH were close to securing a top-4 position, rather than being in a relegation dog-fight.

 

[thebenjamin]

The Mayor of NY, Bill de Blasio just announced all non-essential permitted events in the city will be canceled for the month of June.

I will eat my shoe if the premier league can be completed by June 30th, one of the proposed cut offs.

I cannot imagine for a second the league will be completed, despite the wishful thinking and misinformation coming out

Literally zero chance of that happening

 

[spursfan77]

I suspect she'd come out with loads of reasons why it was workable if WH were close to securing a top-4 position, rather than being in a relegation dog-fight.

There wasn’t much wrong with what she said in fairness.

(yes, I feel dirty)

 

[whitesocks]

The battle is for next season, not this one and given the championship and below rely so heavily on gate money, they are all fcked under the current system. It could be a blood bath. The prem is less reliant on gate money so could just about get away with the tv money/sponsorship alone and games behind closed doors.

But the prem will also have to consider helping support a minimum of 10 clubs say in a prem 2nd division if they want to retain the ability for relegation from the prem.
By invitation only. Clubs with a large support base who will watch the games. Basically the teams within the top half of the championship plus sunderland maybe.

So pick those clubs carefully and think of the 100's of years of history that is being destroyed for those not selected. Clubs that have played wonderful football and won more than spurs are ever likely to win.
Oh but it isn't 10 clubs, because celtic and rangers will be invited to help make it viable. You now have 8 English clubs to pick, unless we want to do a bit of cleansing of the prem, and remove the parasitic clubs that no-one really watches.

Mine's a bleak picture, but crowds spread this thing like mad. A vaccine is more than a year away at the very best. The prem have to prove Brady wrong and map out how games can be played safely behind closed doors. And how it financially makes sense.

Imo Brady will change her tune once this season is terminated and relegation and potentially liquidation are no longer an immediate risk to WH.

 

[dondo]

Wouldn't that hurt teams more than scrapping this season? They will need to pay back some of the money for TV deals and season tickets for remaining games, but would then lose out on a full season of TV money, season tickets sales and probably sponsorship ect.

That would put a lot of smaller club's out of business IMO.

what can you do? Can’t play matches unless thing dramatically improve quickly

 

[Doctor Dinkey]

Yeah I don’t think anyone can reasonably expect much in terms of football until after 20/21 and a vaccine. The main priority is keeping the club in reasonable shape to make sure we are in decent shape when this is all done. Anything we should achieve on the pitch would just be a bonus for me.

I reckon they could get some kind of behind closed doors league going with rigorous testing of the players and essential staff. But as someone on here pointed out, as soon as you get a positive test and start having to cancel games, you're in trouble.

 

[Hakkz]

I reckon they could get some kind of behind closed doors league going with rigorous testing of the players and essential staff. But as someone on here pointed out, as soon as you get a positive test and start having to cancel games, you're in trouble.

Sounds like a massive waste of testing equipment imo.

 

[rightwayup]

The way things are going the players who are coming to the end of their contract may struggle to get another contract anywhere else.

 

[spursfan77]

Sounds like a massive waste of testing equipment imo.

I think what clubs should do if they buy the tests for the club is also buy thousands of tests for the local public at the same time. They could score a massive PR goal by doing that and then offering the tests to vulnerable people in the local community.

Seems an obvious win if they can get hold of the tests.

 

[Shadydan]

The way things are going the players who are coming to the end of their contract may struggle to get another contract anywhere else.

They'll get contracts but the money wouldn't be what they're expecting/used to.

 

[thebenjamin]

I reckon they could get some kind of behind closed doors league going with rigorous testing of the players and essential staff. But as someone on here pointed out, as soon as you get a positive test and start having to cancel games, you're in trouble.

All players and staff would effectively have to be imprisoned for that to happen. Never seeing their families, probably never leaving the sanctioned club quarantine area. Not sure who's going to agree to that.

 

[vegassd]

All players and staff would effectively have to be imprisoned for that to happen. Never seeing their families, probably never leaving the sanctioned club quarantine area. Not sure who's going to agree to that.

Yep, I think it's the biggest spanner about the festival idea. You would need the physios, kit men, caterers (the list goes on) to all agree to not see their families and all the logistical problems that come with that. That's tough enough in the best case scenario but there are surely staff raising kids on their own, or whose partners are front line workers and would have to stay home to look after kids.

It seems more realistic to allow players & staff to go home between games which would be reliant on a large number of very accurate tests being available. The irony will be that when tests are available on that sort of level there may be a lifting of restrictions which will almost certainly raise infection rates. So any BHC restart would need protocols that govern what happens when (not if) a player or coach gets infected.

It's an unenviable task but of course is something that should be looked at for all possibilities. Weigh up the pros and cons, the dependencies and "what ifs" for as many scenarios as possible and then try to get the clubs to agree on the best one! I think it's why so many fans think it won't be back any time soon.

 

[IamSpurtacus]

There’s another complicating factor in this

The corrupt award of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar

The seasons start was already being pushed earlier to accommodate the dumping of a World Cup mid season

If you start 20/21 late, how will you move 21/22 and leave enough time for pre-season?

If you finish this year’s league too late you just kick the can down the road

 

[chrissivad]

There’s another complicating factor in this

The corrupt award of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar

The seasons start was already being pushed earlier to accommodate the dumping of a World Cup mid season

If you start 20/21 late, how will you move 21/22 and leave enough time for pre-season?

If you finish this year’s league too late you just kick the can down the road

you also have the Euros and Olympics for some players in between those seasons as well (if they go ahead)

 

[thebenjamin]

you also have the Euros and Olympics for some players in between those seasons as well (if they go ahead)

No event like that can happen til there's a vaccine. Next summer must be the longest odds imaginable

 

[Hakkz]

I think what clubs should do if they buy the tests for the club is also buy thousands of tests for the local public at the same time. They could score a massive PR goal by doing that and then offering the tests to vulnerable people in the local community.

Seems an obvious win if they can get hold of the tests.

If they can get hold of tests, all of them should go to the public/hospitals around the world. Not to a bunch of clubs that want to play a couple of football games. Just cancel the season.

 

[spursfan77]

If they can get hold of tests, all of them should go to the public/hospitals around the world. Not to a bunch of clubs that want to play a couple of football games. Just cancel the season.

That goes without saying. I was talking about if they’re given the go ahead to complete the season with testing.

 

[coys200]

Dutch prime minister ruled out ANY football till September.

 

[McArchibald]

The Dutch League will not be completed after the government banned all licensed public events untill September 1st.