Which is fairer? Coronavirus implications

[Colonel Dax]

I don’t think that is the inevitable. I think season will just get extended into summer.

According to the government peak cases will be in 10-14 weeks time, so early June. Even after that the fallout will be protracted. IMO the football authorities are in denial if they think this problem will merely go away soon.

 

[Yid121]

This can only be good news, Son and Kane bsck soon

 

[Rob]

Apparently, the players have been sending Lloris out to do their shopping. There's no chance of him catching anything...

 

[King of Otters]

Apparently, the players have been sending Lloris out to do their shopping. There's no chance of him catching anything...

I reckon if you sent Lloris out for groceries he'd just come back with a 24 pack of Super Tennents and a massive bottle of White Lightening.

 

[Trotter]

Apparently, the players have been sending Lloris out to do their shopping. There's no chance of him catching anything...

Some Leipzig players have got it. We were advised we don’t need to self isolate as we never got close enough to them.

 

[Tweddled]

Apparently, the players have been sending Lloris out to do their shopping. There's no chance of him catching anything...

That's a car crash waiting to happen

 

[Styopa]

That's a car crash waiting to happen

Let's give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure he won't want to let this newfound responsibility slip through his fingers.

 

[nailsy]

If they don't complete the season then whatever they decide to do won't be fair on someone.

I'd guess that the remaining fixtures will be played in the slot for the Euros. All behind closed doors, but on free to air tv.

I wonder if players will try and get the virus now so that they've got an immunity to it.

 

[Hakkz]

Do we ignore this season and pretend it didn't happen?

Already ahead of you mate.

What season?

 

[glacierSpurs]

Rumoured Bundesliga Plan:

If we adopt the same, good will be that Liverpool won't be consider champion. Bad will be we will not be in CL..

 

[glacierSpurs]

Wasted we already played the second leg of the CL round of 16.

 

[nailsy]

Thinking about it another option would be to just take the first half of the season into consideration. Every side has played every other team at least once. Use the points from those first meetings to determine the final points totals. Obviously you don't get the home and away factor, but it's a more level playing field than some teams having played team A once, but team B twice and everyone would've played the same number of games. It's not ideal, but it's another option.

 

[eddiebailey]

Sounds like a job for the Pools Panel.

 

[worcestersauce]

The season is over, nobody is going to be able to make the decision to restart on April 4th so in my humble opinion it is effectively cancelled anyway. Although it seems obvious to allocate CL places as it stands I don't think they can do that only three quarters of the way through the season.
The only thing people might agree with is to award the title to Liverpool. As for European games next season I'm not sure there'll be any but I guess if possible a series of play offs might work, moreso for promotion & relegation.

 

[Locotoro]

I believe they will postpone the summer internationals to next year and finish the domestic seasons in the summer alternating Saturday/Wednesday. All remaining European matches will be played thereafter on the same frequency (Saturday/Wednesday) until all games have been played.

Either way any sort of delay helps Spurs.

 

[Tottenhamboy85]

I believe they will postpone the summer internationals to next year and finish the domestic seasons in the summer.

Either way any sort of delay helps Spurs.

All well and good put lots of players are out of contract in the summer what happens with these?

 

[Locotoro]

All well and good put lots of players are out of contract in the summer what happens with these?

I believe the PFAs across Europe will push the club's into extending contracts until the final game for each club. Players get their contracts extended, clubs keep their players a bit more.
In legal terms, it would be an extension for a specified period and at worst this situation would be considered force majeure and would allow such a deviation in terms.

The only difficulty is reconciling the domestic cups and European cup matches. Not sure how that could be done other than to cancel the domestic cup competitions to make room in the scheduling and give the qualification slot to the league position

 

[jimmy-jojo]

I believe the PFAs across Europe will push the club's into extending contracts until the final game for each club. Players get their contracts extended, clubs keep their players a bit more.
In legal terms, it would be an extension for a specified period and at worst this situation would be considered force majeure and would allow such a deviation in terms.

The only difficulty is reconciling the domestic cups and European cup matches. Not sure how that could be done other than to cancel the domestic cup competitions to make room in the scheduling and give the qualification slot to the league position

What about players who have signed pre-contract agreements to join another club on July 1?

 

[Dave1976]

Edit: Now this has happened, making this more visible for discussion of what happens next.

Assuming that all football is postponed/cancelled within the next week or so, I still can't decide what the fairest approach is.

Do we ignore this season and pretend it didn't happen?
All promoted/relegated teams from 2018/2019 to stay where they are.
European qualification as 2018/2019 (we're back in the CL)
Liverpool not given title (harsh but hilarious)

or

Do we say that the places as of a certain date are the "end" of the season?
Liverpool win league
Teams currently in promotion/regelation/europe positions count as end of season
Some times will have had harder fixtures than others so some teams very disadvantaged. That could in theory put some clubs out of business.
No FA cup final means no winners to qualify for europe so how we do fill that space?

Both options seem pretty crap but which would be fairer? It's fairly obvious that it needs to be consistent Europe-wide but there's no guarantee that we decide to do the same as the other major leagues unless UEFA mandate it.

The easiest (and fairest, in my opinion) would be to cancel all seasons now. With over 2 thirds of games already played, there’s enough data there to do a projection of how many points each team is likely to get until the end of the season and award finishing places that way. Clearly, there will always be teams who say they were about to enter their best form of the season and go on a winning streak, but at least everyone’s in the same boat and clear on the outcome t tv his way.

 

[Locotoro]

What about players who have signed pre-contract agreements to join another club on July 1?

A precontractual agreement has no more legal standing than a handshake. It's essentially an agreement to agree which for the most part is unenforceable. In most cases the clubs and players would have to postpone those arrangements until both clubs finished their commitments.