Arteta tested positive for Corona Virus

AlwaysRed66

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If the powers that be aren't going to halt the season, as almost every other countrys pro sports leagues are doing, then clubs should just refuse to play. Why risk exacerbating this by cramming 50,000 people into stadiums? It's not important in the grand scheme of things.
I am sure 19 of them will refuse to play. Who can guess who would be the odd one out.
 

Fortitude

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Weird how so many are going on about the title when the financial implications of the relegation battle and the CL spots is far more important as regards the league and the quandary suspension etc. causes them.

The 8-10 clubs contesting Europe and relegation will have a lot more to say than Liverpool in all of this.
 

Camy89

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Why are footballers different then? They should just follow the same protocols.
They're not any different. A number of PL footballers have been displaying symptoms of COVID-19. A manager of one of the teams has tested positive. It's unclear who has been exposed from those 3 Leicester players and Mikel Arteta. Who else has been exposed? The last 2 teams they've played, have those 2 teams then passed it onto the teams they played?

I get where you're coming from: whichever player feels well, let them play just like everyone else who is going to work who feels well. I think my bug bear comes from the public impact this has on behaviour. If the league is suspended it gives a nod to people that this shit is serious. Footballers not going to work isn't the end of the world, but if it plays a part in trying to contain the virus; whether from a behaviour perspective, an awareness one, or a physical one (i.e. not flying abroad for european games/across the country) then it's worth it.

What frustrates me is that there will be the inevitable loss of revenue for the PL and I fear that plays more heavily on the minds in the upper echelons of the game rather than the bigger picture.
 

mariachi-19

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Weird how so many are going on about the title when the financial implications of the relegation battle and the CL spots is far more important as regards the league and the quandary suspension etc. causes them.

The 8-10 clubs contesting Europe and relegation will have a lot more to say than Liverpool in all of this.
Simply no relegation or promotion and if you are currently in a european qualifying position, you get qualification
 

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"The entire first-team squad and coaching staff will now self-isolate for 14 days from the moment they last had close contact with Arteta, effectively meaning they will not be able to train until the final few days of March."
 

TMDaines

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They're not any different. A number of PL footballers have been displaying symptoms of COVID-19. A manager of one of the teams has tested positive. It's unclear who has been exposed from those 3 Leicester players and Mikel Arteta. Who else has been exposed? The last 2 teams they've played, have those 2 teams then passed it onto the teams they played?

I get where you're coming from: whichever player feels well, let them play just like everyone else who is going to work who feels well. I think my bug bear comes from the public impact this has on behaviour. If the league is suspended it gives a nod to people that this shit is serious. Footballers not going to work isn't the end of the world, but if it plays a part in trying to contain the virus; whether from a behaviour perspective, an awareness one, or a physical one (i.e. not flying abroad for european games/across the country) then it's worth it.

What frustrates me is that there will be the inevitable loss of revenue for the PL and I fear that plays more heavily on the minds in the upper echelons of the game rather than the bigger picture.
Funnily enough I think the PL suspending handshakes raised far more awareness than calling the games off prematurely would have done. Office culture has changed dramatically in our sites this week because of it. Handshakes with visitors and interviewees has all but been stopped.

I agree we are quickly reaching breaking point where teams will be unable to simply fulfil their fixtures if they are to follow COVID-19 self isolation guidance.
 

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It's really a terrible news. Hopefully he'll recover well and they won't discover any other incidents in Arsenal team.
 

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Simply no relegation or promotion and if you are currently in a european qualifying position, you get qualification
Which would go down a barrel of laughs for Championship sides who stand to make a fortune via promotion to the PL. If you are currently in a European spot, others contesting who could well have usurped you, are not.

No club in these predicaments is going to accept those terms. At least 8 clubs right there with vested interest in things not remaining as is.
 

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What I dont understand with the league is, if a manager or player gets it, he is sharing the same space as players and staff. We are trying to contain it, not spread it. If Mikel has it, it doesn't take a genius to understand that he has contaminated the training grounds.

Who ever Arsenal players come in contact with can pass it on without actually feeling the effects. Stupid and greed are the two words used for the FA. NO behind closed doors is ever going to do anything.
 

Camy89

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Funnily enough I think the PL suspending handshakes raised far more awareness than calling the games off prematurely would have done. Office culture has changed dramatically in our sites this week because of it. Handshakes with visitors and interviewees has all but been stopped.

I agree we are quickly reaching breaking point where teams will be unable to simply fulfil their fixtures if they are to follow COVID-19 self isolation guidance.
Do you feel it's more of a publicity stunt to raise awareness rather than to genuinely reduce exposure? At the end of the day these guys are still clambering around each other in the penalty box for corners etc.
 

TMDaines

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Do you feel it's more of a publicity stunt to raise awareness rather than to genuinely reduce exposure? At the end of the day these guys are still clambering around each other in the penalty box for corners etc.
100% it was for awareness raising.
 

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What I dont understand with the league is, if a manager or player gets it, he is sharing the same space as players and staff. We are trying to contain it, not spread it. If Mikel has it, it doesn't take a genius to understand that he has contaminated the training grounds.

Who ever Arsenal players come in contact with can pass it on without actually feeling the effects. Stupid and greed are the two words used for the FA. NO behind closed doors is ever going to do anything.
Once again, the containment phase is over. Contacts don't need to do anything. Only people with actual symptoms do. Over half of us will get it. You probably will, I probably will. Arteta getting it is no surprise.

I'm not saying this is the right policy, just that it is the policy. Arteta won't be the last, or the next to last, or the millionth to last, as an individual he's irrelevant.
 

JoeyJoJoJrShabadoo

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Utterly gutted football is being cancelled but you can't ignore the fact that multiple players in the league and now Arteta has it. It will get "suspended" and they will review the situation in 2 weeks. By then they will have to cancel it outright as it will only get worse world wide. It fecking sucks but this is the situation until they either figure out a cure or we literally come out the other end of a global pandemic. This is the new normal chaps.
 

Tom Cato

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It's not just the PL that would be losing a tonne of money though, is it? Clubs (and the entire filter effect), sponsors, broadcasters etc. etc. there a lot of hurdles to deal with here and further to that, the PL is the most monied, watched league in the world with more to lose than any other European league.

The plug will be plugged eventually, but there'll be objection to it by some some who stand to lose a lot of money. That's before we consider the football league itself, which is going to be in big trouble without assurances before bringing the shutters down.

This is actually not such a complicated issue as one might think. But it is very expensive.. but not for everyone.

There's a few income for the clubs factors that can be broken down into three: matchdday revenue, sponsor revenue and TV revenue. I won't go into too much detail or I'll never get to go to bed, so I'll just do the tl;dr version and someone can fill in the gaps if they want to.

Matchday revenue is relatively steady. A percentage of the seats are sold on the day and the rest belong to season ticket holders. MUFC have 53,000 season ticket holders of a capacity of 75,000. So 23,000 people cash in a ticket if the stadium sells out. Median ticket price for an adult between 21 and 64 at OT is £47,4 pounds. Wow thats expensive. Anyway. Old Trafford is more or less sold out every home game, so let's say that 23,000 people are all adult geezers. Thats £1,1 million pounds of doorsales ticket revenue x 18 home games = £20m~rounded. The season is left with 9 games so we're looking at a loss of sale revenue of around £4-5m pounds. Edit: The number of available matchday seats are 22,000. Not 23,000 like i wrote because I'm a clown.

Important factor: This number is considerably lower for nearly every team in the Premier League. Old Trafford is a big big stadium.

Season ticket holders will need to be compensated. Unless there is a force majeure clause in the season ticket agreement that voids the clubs responsibiltiy if outside forces affects the season.That is not entirely impossible, or unreasonable. Maybe a season ticket holder can chime in if any such clause exists? If it does not, there are 53 000 people who need to be compensated, somehow. Most likely they will be permitted to buy cheaper season tickets next season, or allowed free entry into Europa games (do season tickets cover this already?)

sponsor revenue is not linked to games played, but certainly will have a force majeure clause that can dictate any number of results in the event of season cancellation, matchday cancellation, etc. It can also just be standardized like most are. "A force outside the clubs control". Sponsorship deals can also typically have a clause that limits payout if a club fails to achieve certain criteria. This criteria could or could not be met if the season is cancelled today. For example MUFC's sponsors might demand CL if they are to renew. We are currently NOT in a CL spot. What happens if the season cancels today?

Well normally, a sponsor is there for the long haul, in a constructive business partnership. They will have no interest in causing bad blood, and most disputes are solved outside of a courtroom. The most common solution is to carry it over into the next season, extend the deal a few month. Amicable solutions. In this case we have a global pandemic and everyone are likely to bend over backwards to accomodate everyone. So sponorship revenue won't be affected.

TV revenue is the big one. Right now, since we're so late in the season, the potential windfall won't be so big, All Premier League teams are assigned a fixed sum from the TV deals. Domestic TV, overseas TV and central commercialisation all worth at least £95 million or so MINIMUM to all clubs. This is the fixed guarantee income per season. Then you have the Facility fees that are paid out based on the number of games you appear on TV. And this is where the potential damage comes. Each televised match pays out over £1,1million for each game over ten per year they are aired on TV. Any team aired less than 10 is also guarantee a minimum of £12million each.

I don't know the TV schedule, but MUFC can potentially lose out on £5-6m pounds assuming we're aired on half the remaining games of the season.

This is the very very simple version. The potential profit loss for MUFC of a PL cancellation today runs north of £10,000,000 PLUS season ticket compensations. Very few clubs stand to lose as much, but I'd say most clubs will lose between £5,000,000 to 10,000,000 if the Premier League was to be cancelled today.

(and the entire filter effect)

Now the filter effect is the most devastating one and honestly the only one to think about before making the call to cancel. I'd try to make an estimate on this one but I realise I'd be pulling a number out of my buttocks. Running and operating a show like the Premier League requires thousands and thousands of employees all over England, from cleaning staff to catering, security, developers, literally any job you can think of will be affected by the clubs operations shutting down. And unlike the megarich clubs, the average person can not afford to be laid off for a few weeks. But what can you do? We're at the point where you have to consider others over yourself.

To me, shutting down the Premier League is the easiest choice in the world. You just pull the plug. I, like many of you have older relatives that will not fare well if they were to be infected and develop severe symptoms. Seeing how exponentially this outbreak is progressing in Norway is quite concerning. It will happen in the UK as well.

From my point of view, there is no one who are at risk of "losing a lot of money" as it stands. The broadcasters will have to compensate their subscribers for loss of product in the short term, and this will be costly. But they will recouperate that by increasing the price of the subscription by a pence for everyone and that takes care of itself.

As an anecdote: I own 2 companies. One is a medium sized online sport and outdoor store. I've seen gross sales drop 40% this week compared to normal weeks, since the last thing anyone want right now, is a nice pair of leggings to go to a closed gym, or a sweet new jacket for that lovely trip to the cabin. Society is taking a break right now, but hopefully we will all come out on the other end feeling great about ourselves for collectively taking one for the team.

China have completely stopped the outbreak now, so the mesures work.
 
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mariachi-19

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Which would go down a barrel of laughs for Championship sides who stand to make a fortune via promotion to the PL. If you are currently in a European spot, others contesting who could well have usurped you, are not.

No club in these predicaments is going to accept those terms. At least 8 clubs right there with vested interest in things not remaining as is.
Tough titties. If you weren't good enough to get up last year, than that's your problem. There's not guarantee's you were getting promoted or relegated so you shouldnt be penalised or benefit as a result of the current events.

As for europe, aside from sheffield, nearly every team has had the same amount of games in order to get into those positions in the league. You can't hand a win to sheffield so that extra game will have to be a draw.
 

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Terrible news; best wishes to him.

And cancel the damn season now.
 

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Nice post @Tom Cato. I'm sure we're not long for the league to be halted, but there's going to be a lot of [exhaustive] sorting out going on behind closed doors before the call is made. Even more so for the football league where you have to think some clubs aren't going to survive this.
 

Fortitude

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Tough titties. If you weren't good enough to get up last year, than that's your problem. There's not guarantee's you were getting promoted or relegated so you shouldnt be penalised or benefit as a result of the current events.

As for europe, aside from sheffield, nearly every team has had the same amount of games in order to get into those positions in the league. You can't hand a win to sheffield so that extra game will have to be a draw.
More like, 'we're not having that!' Before the legal teams get to work!
 

mariachi-19

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More like, 'we're not having that!' Before the legal teams get to work!
What are you going to sue for? loss of opportunity?

You would be hard pressed to find that they have been denied the loss of opportunity which would give rise for an action against the Premier League. Where an event occurs that prevents the loss of opportunity there has to be a distinct breach and a causal link between the breach and the effect on the other party. Where there is a huge element of remoteness between the loss occuring as a result of the breach, courts will be reluctant to find in favour of the party suffering loss and if they do, they will only receive a proportionate amount to the projected loss.

What would happen in these circumstances is that the premier league would calcualte the chance of promotion, what those teams would receive from entering the premier league and make deductions to the overral amount based on their chance of promotion. IE if 6th place had a 13% chance of promotion, they would receive 13% of what they expected to receive by way of profit from promotion. I almost guarantee that the amount paid out by the premier league would probably fall in line with the parachute payments the relegated teams receive after being relegated from the Premier League.
 

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You have incorrect information, mate. Let me share some data with you.

“Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/#who-03-03-20

The "far fewer than 1%" means 0.1 for US, for instance. According to CDC this season there were at most 49M flu infections in the US, out of which at most 52,000 died https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm

which means, with influenza the death rate is 52K/49M = 0.1% i.e. Corona is 34 times more deadly! By all indications it is way worse in elderly population, according to some reports reaching 15% mortality rate in people 70 or older.

Even bigger issue is the hospitalization rate. According to the same CDC data, only 1% of flu patients needed hospitalization. This is because our bodies are used to Influenza and most people also take seasonal flu vaccination shots. Corona is a new virus, with no antibodies and no vaccination. Therefore, a lot of people who get it need hospitalization. This is the biggest danger since no medical system, in any country is prepared for the volume, unless we slow the spread down. Which is why it is absolutely critical social distancing measures to be taken immediately.

Here's the infographic explaining the importance of social distancing and slowing the spread down:



Based on this evidence, your claim (which I am sure you've heard from others) that "it is just flu" is not only false, it is very dangerous. And we have a clear example how Italy turned into a horror-show by not taking threat seriously and not slowing spread. Their medical system is so overwhelmed, they do not even answer calls for people with pre-existing problems and people over 65 years old - just letting them die. How is that for - maybe taking things more seriously?
This.
 

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tentan

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Hope he (and the world basically) get better and beat this virus. This thing is getting scary now.
 

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Wishing for Arteta's full recovery.

That said, the PL has to be suspended at this point, surely?
 

Rhyme Animal

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So, how has Hudson Odoi caught it?

And why are PL players getting tested when the general public are being refused tests unless you've directly been to China or had contact with someone who has?

Like, they're stating that they estimate 10,000 people might have it, but they're refusing to test people with symptoms.
 

17 Van der Gouw

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I'd have thought there's no reason you can't get it done through your private medical provider. I doubt many PL footballers are getting tested through the NHS.

This next part is speculation but I suspect the reason footballers and other famous people are popping up prominently is because the sheer number of places they travel, the number of people they meet and the number of hands they shake. Just a thought.
 

DBT85

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So, how has Hudson Odoi caught it?

And why are PL players getting tested when the general public are being refused tests unless you've directly been to China or had contact with someone who has?

Like, they're stating that they estimate 10,000 people might have it, but they're refusing to test people with symptoms.
Because they'll be getting tested privately.