So
Blackpool champions
Could they void the PL due to the Coronavirus? | No | Resuming June 17th
- Thread starter Tarrou
- Start date
But as i and others have explained theres no real way of continuing it beyond June that would be fair on all teams surely you see that?
As an example after June United can recall Henderson from Sheffield one of their best players this season. Despite both teams competing directly for the same CL spot, that wouldn't be fair. And again as stated just going off current positions isn't fair either as some teams have played more games than others. Then theres cup competitions that also need to be played out if the league is resuming. United have potentially another 18 games to play, which would take 2-3 months to complete. Where are all those games going to be fitted in and allow a break/pre-season then next season to start and finish before Euro 2021?
Or is it just the League that needs to be finished at all costs in your opinion?
No the only solution thats equally fair to all teams is to void the season if it can't be completed by June. Letting it drag on until the end of the year is only going to cause more upheavel, headaches and chaos for potentially the next 3-5 seasons. I don't want it to be voided, i would love for this crisis to be over in the next 2-3 weeks and watch the season be played out. I'd happily see Liverpool win the fecking league if it meant people weren't dying from this virus anymore. But sadly thats not very likely and theres a decision that has to and will be made in the next few months that will be necessary. Not everyone will be happy about it but i think people need to be mature about it and respect it.
Absolutely spot on.
I could honestly see the following happening now:
- The PL Season 19-20 is null and void
- The CL & EL 19-20 go the same way
- PL Season 20-21 if even possible is played with a delayed start and domestic Cups are cancelled if needed.
- CL & EL 20-21 is cancelled (first legs of these Competitions are in June 2020 so the Clock is already ticking on it)
- CL & EL return for the 21-22 Season
But it plausible this could be the outcome.
Even at the back end of July you're suggesting 1) players can't have a holiday, 2) the next season starts without a break 3) which rolls into the Euros etc etc, The you've go all the medical issues and covid19 returning.
The seasons done.
I think the European competitions will be cancelled before domestic ones, which will then make them decide if we take part in Europe next season or not.
My feeling is that too, and if we start in July it will be for preseason, etc. Its not impossible to finish this season late, but it would have to be done by September, with a mid October restart. I think the PL will eventually decide there are too many variables. Testing kits may well breathe some life into the argument though.
I think the best option is to merge this and next season. Set a restart date of October when we can be pretty sure things can start again and finish early for the euros. Then have a huge festival of football for the euros.
maybe that would mean giving Liverpool 2 league championships.
maybe that would mean giving Liverpool 2 league championships.
To add can see nations league being scrapped and them just going straight to World cup qualifiers otherwise time starts to tick on Qatar WC 2002 and that being played on time. For example they've already cancelled the first two South American qualifiers and they've got 18 in total to play by November 2021 (of course they could always go as emergency to two groups of five so less matches).
No idea how we're going to see any international football in Africa in the foreseeable future.
Very likely World cup will be delayed by a year.
Football calender will be completely rewritten from what we've known over last 20 years.
Premier League support to void season grows but legal minefield awaits if EFL are cut adrift
At least four clubs believe scrapping the 2019/20 campaign is a realistic option as the money saved by staying in the Premier League outweighs what broadcasters would be owed, but the EFL’s desire to finish the season causes multiple problems
Miguel Delaney Chief Football Writer @MiguelDelaney
3 hours ago
As Premier League officials pored over documents when the coronavirus crisis first began to spread, a simple but stark reality became apparent: there was absolutely no provision for a situation like this. It was never considered that football could just stop.
That vacuum has started up intense discussion about what can be done next, with all manner of solutions encouraged, but one of the more drastic suggestions has picked up momentum in the last few days.
That is to void the season.
It was an idea that two clubs intimated support for on the night the Premier League was finally postponed on 12 March, with West Ham United’s Karren Brady then revealing her backing in a newspaper column that Saturday. The backlash to that saw the proposal temporarily shelved, but the ongoing uncertainty has seen some figures come back to it. At least four clubs now favour it, with Harry Kane then adding his backing on Sunday. Figures like Kane speaking out has fostered a feeling the momentum behind it could grow, especially the longer the postponement goes on without any solution.
But does that actually mean voiding the season is even possible? What are the technicalities and merits to the idea? What would it actually entail, and what would it mean?
Well, it would mean exactly what the word does: voided. The 2019-20 season would be expunged. “It won’t have happened,” one figure centrally involved in discussions told The Independent. That would mean the “2020-21” season - which is virtually certain to be greatly truncated no matter what - would really just be the 2019-20 season restarted, making the entire enterprise somewhat farcical when eight months of it have already been played. All of the results and records of that period would meanwhile be wiped, and it’s a wonder whether Kane would feel the same if he was told all of his goals wouldn’t count.
Most pressingly, though, the broadcasters would have legal and contractual right to demand money back. This is the source of the very real concerns that the Premier League clubs would collectively lose up to £1.2bn if the season is voided. It also leads to real-world concerns, beyond the trivialities in football. Take £1.2bn out of an industry, especially at a time of depression, and that's a lot of jobs lost. They won't be the most financially insulated jobs either.
This is why the vast majority of the clubs are determined - some sources would say “desperate” - to complete the campaign.
All of the current top-half teams are in that camp, even if some of their supporters are not. That in itself touches on the deeper complexity of this problem.
For all the fixation on Liverpool “getting their title”, the real debate is lower down the table. There lies the greatest argument against voiding the season, because of the multitude of complications it would cause.
“It really would be the worst of all solutions,” one source says. “If it came to it, no one in their right mind would vote against Liverpool being champions, but the bottom would be a mess. It would actually be more justifiable to void the season at the top than the bottom.”
It’s also where it has the potential to get political. Four bottom-half clubs are said to be in favour of voiding the season because they feel that the money guaranteed from staying in the Premier League for another campaign would be greater than any money they have to give back to broadcasters.
This is what the entire debate will really come down to: what clubs will be able to count up to. It really is about the hard sums. Money will be the determining factor everywhere.
Hence, whatever about any emotional concerns based on rivalry from those on the outside of the game, the majority of clubs want to try and complete the season - whenever that is.
If that were to shift, however, there is the issue that a vote among the 20 top clubs alone would not be enough.
The regulations and agreements dictate that the Premier League cannot unilaterally void a season without the agreement of the Football Association and the English Football League. For the same reasons, the top division can’t just decide to re-align relegation so it’s one up, one down rather than three up, three down.
And the EFL’s position is unequivocal: they are determined to finish the season, no matter when that may be. That is down to motivations much greater than any of the Premier League's reasons. It centres around the very survival of tranches of clubs. There are estimations up to 45 clubs could go out of business.
As such, the EFL's position won't be changing, and that effectively locks the Premier League in. It is there where the real potential for legal challenges arise. Multiple sources say that promotion-chasing clubs would have a legitimate argument that they will have suffered extraordinary loss if the Premier League does attempt to void the season and just restart from summer 2019. The expectation is they would be “very aggressive”.
Many who are against voiding the season have meanwhile raised the understandable issue of sporting integrity, but that goes even bigger. There’s the consequential issue of public trust in the competition.
If a league is voided, and the game effectively says certain games don’t matter, it means no result can ever be relied upon. The contract with supporters will have been broken. That could have far deeper repercussions than anything else. And it is all the more pressing given the inevitability that 2020-21 will have to be truncated and postponed at some point, and the greater ease of working around that knowledge, which makes it even more pointless to try and rush a decision on this season.
Rushing it, of course, is the greater problem in all this. Many key figures are uncomfortable with the nature of this debate at a time when so many people are dying and the curve remains steep.
“We shouldn’t be airing grievances about finishing our season now,” one source says. “The time for debate is in a month or so. There’s no point speculating. It’s too early to tell. Football just needs to wait.”
Uefa's mature decision to relax their own position on seasons ending only fortifies this view. There isn't the same pressure.
It’s just the wait can’t go on indefinitely, either. If sporting integrity is obviously a fair rationale for refusing to void the season, it similarly applies to any extended gap in play. If that extends past six months, can it really be fairly considered the same season? Would the teams even be the same?
This is when some feel the situation could change, and the momentum goes back behind the idea. It's why it is still a live possibility, even if a remote one.
That’s if it isn’t killed before then. The Premier League are due to have another call this week, and there is an expectation that they will try and suppress the idea once and for all.
“But you can’t rule anything in or out at the moment. All you can say is the current situation really is unprecedented.”
That means only one thing in all this is certain: the Premier League will be making such provisions in future.
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...rpool-title-efl-legal-challenge-a9437081.html
At least four clubs believe scrapping the 2019/20 campaign is a realistic option as the money saved by staying in the Premier League outweighs what broadcasters would be owed, but the EFL’s desire to finish the season causes multiple problems
Miguel Delaney Chief Football Writer @MiguelDelaney
3 hours ago
As Premier League officials pored over documents when the coronavirus crisis first began to spread, a simple but stark reality became apparent: there was absolutely no provision for a situation like this. It was never considered that football could just stop.
That vacuum has started up intense discussion about what can be done next, with all manner of solutions encouraged, but one of the more drastic suggestions has picked up momentum in the last few days.
That is to void the season.
It was an idea that two clubs intimated support for on the night the Premier League was finally postponed on 12 March, with West Ham United’s Karren Brady then revealing her backing in a newspaper column that Saturday. The backlash to that saw the proposal temporarily shelved, but the ongoing uncertainty has seen some figures come back to it. At least four clubs now favour it, with Harry Kane then adding his backing on Sunday. Figures like Kane speaking out has fostered a feeling the momentum behind it could grow, especially the longer the postponement goes on without any solution.
But does that actually mean voiding the season is even possible? What are the technicalities and merits to the idea? What would it actually entail, and what would it mean?
Well, it would mean exactly what the word does: voided. The 2019-20 season would be expunged. “It won’t have happened,” one figure centrally involved in discussions told The Independent. That would mean the “2020-21” season - which is virtually certain to be greatly truncated no matter what - would really just be the 2019-20 season restarted, making the entire enterprise somewhat farcical when eight months of it have already been played. All of the results and records of that period would meanwhile be wiped, and it’s a wonder whether Kane would feel the same if he was told all of his goals wouldn’t count.
Most pressingly, though, the broadcasters would have legal and contractual right to demand money back. This is the source of the very real concerns that the Premier League clubs would collectively lose up to £1.2bn if the season is voided. It also leads to real-world concerns, beyond the trivialities in football. Take £1.2bn out of an industry, especially at a time of depression, and that's a lot of jobs lost. They won't be the most financially insulated jobs either.
This is why the vast majority of the clubs are determined - some sources would say “desperate” - to complete the campaign.
All of the current top-half teams are in that camp, even if some of their supporters are not. That in itself touches on the deeper complexity of this problem.
For all the fixation on Liverpool “getting their title”, the real debate is lower down the table. There lies the greatest argument against voiding the season, because of the multitude of complications it would cause.
“It really would be the worst of all solutions,” one source says. “If it came to it, no one in their right mind would vote against Liverpool being champions, but the bottom would be a mess. It would actually be more justifiable to void the season at the top than the bottom.”
It’s also where it has the potential to get political. Four bottom-half clubs are said to be in favour of voiding the season because they feel that the money guaranteed from staying in the Premier League for another campaign would be greater than any money they have to give back to broadcasters.
This is what the entire debate will really come down to: what clubs will be able to count up to. It really is about the hard sums. Money will be the determining factor everywhere.
Hence, whatever about any emotional concerns based on rivalry from those on the outside of the game, the majority of clubs want to try and complete the season - whenever that is.
If that were to shift, however, there is the issue that a vote among the 20 top clubs alone would not be enough.
The regulations and agreements dictate that the Premier League cannot unilaterally void a season without the agreement of the Football Association and the English Football League. For the same reasons, the top division can’t just decide to re-align relegation so it’s one up, one down rather than three up, three down.
And the EFL’s position is unequivocal: they are determined to finish the season, no matter when that may be. That is down to motivations much greater than any of the Premier League's reasons. It centres around the very survival of tranches of clubs. There are estimations up to 45 clubs could go out of business.
As such, the EFL's position won't be changing, and that effectively locks the Premier League in. It is there where the real potential for legal challenges arise. Multiple sources say that promotion-chasing clubs would have a legitimate argument that they will have suffered extraordinary loss if the Premier League does attempt to void the season and just restart from summer 2019. The expectation is they would be “very aggressive”.
Many who are against voiding the season have meanwhile raised the understandable issue of sporting integrity, but that goes even bigger. There’s the consequential issue of public trust in the competition.
If a league is voided, and the game effectively says certain games don’t matter, it means no result can ever be relied upon. The contract with supporters will have been broken. That could have far deeper repercussions than anything else. And it is all the more pressing given the inevitability that 2020-21 will have to be truncated and postponed at some point, and the greater ease of working around that knowledge, which makes it even more pointless to try and rush a decision on this season.
Rushing it, of course, is the greater problem in all this. Many key figures are uncomfortable with the nature of this debate at a time when so many people are dying and the curve remains steep.
“We shouldn’t be airing grievances about finishing our season now,” one source says. “The time for debate is in a month or so. There’s no point speculating. It’s too early to tell. Football just needs to wait.”
Uefa's mature decision to relax their own position on seasons ending only fortifies this view. There isn't the same pressure.
It’s just the wait can’t go on indefinitely, either. If sporting integrity is obviously a fair rationale for refusing to void the season, it similarly applies to any extended gap in play. If that extends past six months, can it really be fairly considered the same season? Would the teams even be the same?
This is when some feel the situation could change, and the momentum goes back behind the idea. It's why it is still a live possibility, even if a remote one.
That’s if it isn’t killed before then. The Premier League are due to have another call this week, and there is an expectation that they will try and suppress the idea once and for all.
“But you can’t rule anything in or out at the moment. All you can say is the current situation really is unprecedented.”
That means only one thing in all this is certain: the Premier League will be making such provisions in future.
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...rpool-title-efl-legal-challenge-a9437081.html
After 3 league games on 3 September 1939...
Well nobody knows for sure if herd immunity can actually work in this case. Apparently there are studies which suggest that antibodies dissapear quite quickly from the body so people who already had it could catch covid-19 again.
This is what I think as well. If/when this season is canceled, it won't be as simple as a new season starting normally from August. There's little chance of European competition being played and I have a feeling that the domestic cups will have to be canceled due to the season not being able to begin until towards the end of 2020. No transfer window or perhaps simply a domestic one. Games initially played behind closed doors.
I think the plan would be to aim for a normal 2021/22 season to start from August and simply make do until then with whatever the situation allows.
Looking at movie calendar: only four big-budget movies are still scheduled for this summer. I really don't think we'll see any mass entertainment before mid / late September and even that could be too optimistic.
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I think the end of the league will go ahead and will take four weeks to complete. It has to. This is coming from a United supporter. I think people are overthinking.
If players get the go ahead to play from 1st of July.
If players get the go ahead to play from 1st of July.
- Two weeks training/matches etc.
- League starts 15th of July
- Ends 15th August.
- Season starts 15th of September.
All 36 teams of Bundesliga 1 and 2 met today. They are commited to finishing the season. The plan is to restart at the first or second weekend of May. All games will (most likely) be behind closed doors. Season to be finished by 30 June.
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If the league was to start on 15th July that is pretty much three months of no Football. Or to put otherwise it is a full normal break between seasons - which is usually Mid May until Mid August or thereabouts.
No way do they just start up again with two weeks Training. Ordinarly they would have 6-7 weeks of pre Season.
Yeah exactly. If we get to June or mid May and there's still no end to this in sight I think that's when you start having discussions about what to do, but even then cancelling the season would be a last resort. A better option would be to make alterations to shorten the following season or just change the scheduling of it. By that time more will be known about the virus and you also have more time to play around with. Just seems like common sense to me.
All this concern about fitness but it shouldn't actually take a professional athlete 6 weeks to get themselves fit enough to do their job properly, because they shouldn't be unfit in the first place. Footballers live a very spoilt life in terms of the level of professionalism expected so it's not really the greatest injustice in the world if that has to be curbed a bit for one season.
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I also see Spurs (and I'm guessing one or two other PL clubs) are cutting pay to non playing employees. I think we've done something similar or at least hinted we may have to. I don't really get how clubs can find millions of pounds to spend on a footballer which is as much a gamble as an investment, yet within a few weeks of this can't find any money to pay their own staff.
Strange, people on here were convinced Bayern, etc, wanted to void despite leading and likely being champions this season.
Germany is at totally different stage to U.K ( hint TEST TEST TEST) but guess that does show if you can get things under reasonably control and then have another 4-6 week period things can change.
Interesting if they do restart and Italy and Spain obviously can't in near future. Would probably mean Uefa would just say to premier league try to get things started again by end of June and if not then cancel the season rather than this blanket ban that seems to have cropped up in last week.
All of that doesn't matter. They'd be complaints either way. The fact is its looking more likely to be cancelled than it was a few weeks ago
You best prepare yourself
I assume because we are in the midst of an unprecedented modern event where clubs have gone to £0 income overnight, with no knowledge of when their next income will come, when football will restart, what it will look like when it does, what may happen with Europe/relegation/ crowds etc etc. Not to mention that a lot of clubs aren't exactly financially responsible at the best of times.
All of the clubs obviously want to cut player wages for this period as well but, unlike on the continent, these discussions seem to be happening as a collective at the moment, between all 20 clubs and the player's union as well. I'm sure it will come soon enough.
Let's see how far they get. We'll on them if they have totally dealt with the containment and spread of the virus by then.
Definitely not a time line the UK can follow.
I don't imagine that the decision will ultimately be theirs though. It will come from government whether they can restart then or not based on the circumstances in the rest of the country.
It is unprecedented but numbers don't change or lie. PL clubs get enough money through TV revenue to ride this out for more than 1 week without having to take basic wages away from their workers as a precaution. I find it quite bizarre. They all have significant cash flow which will only have stopped within the last few weeks, all have guaranteed future revenue through tv deals, gate receipts, and multi million pound assets in the form of their players. There is some good being done but a lot of panicking from people thinking about their pockets rather than helping out. The irony being the more cut backs they make before necessary, the more damage it's going to do to their revenue and asset value when things do start returning to normal.
It's a different storey once you get below the PL as the money simply isn't there which means there also isn't the leverage to borrow it or pay someone on the provision the money will be made up further down the line.
It's not happening. Clubs are already giving their stadiums and facilities to the NHS for use during this crisis. They know there will be no football for a long time.
It's funny how this forum takes dailymail sources seriously when it suits their agenda but scoffs at it when it goes against theirs.
This is what I've been saying.
Listen It's only April. This will be finished. The peak is supposed to be mid to late April. Numbers will come down after this.
Depends on how well we have managed to contain it
But that's my point though. Is it guaranteed? Wasn't there talk of BT and Sky demanding money back from the PL clubs if the season is cancelled? Literally billions of pounds? We don't know when we'll allow crowds back in the stadia. Will sponsors still pay out if they're not getting exposure? What if the sponsor goes bust in this period?
I think it would be very irresponsible imo of clubs to be planning currently on things going back to normal in the near future. They don't know when their next gate receipt will come in (with all the accompanying food and drink money). They don't know if they're going to be taken to court to retrieve TV money. They don't know how long they're going to have to pay these multi million pound assets without any return from them and they don't know what the state of the transfer market will be like when we do return.
I get what you're saying of course, the optics look pretty shitty. But I'm pretty confident they'll be announcing a collective wage reduction for all of the players soon enough as well.
You need far more than two weeks training to restart a season particularly if you do individual stuff like Dortmund are doing today. This will be a way longer break than in summer and even then many players are playing international tournaments so only get 2-3 week break in any case.
People will stick to their guns of what "should" happen, but what is undeniable, is that the number of stories about voiding is definitely increasing.
It's gone from it being "unthinkable" a few weeks ago, to now being mentioned more and more.
If the current lockdown in the UK is extended, or even made stricter, it will only go more down that path.
It's gone from it being "unthinkable" a few weeks ago, to now being mentioned more and more.
If the current lockdown in the UK is extended, or even made stricter, it will only go more down that path.
The Kicker is reporting that German football is set up start up again first week in May behind locked doors. According to them, this has been decided in a video conference between the 36 clubs in 1st and 2nd Bundesliga.
https://www.kicker.de/773106/artikel/bundesliga_soll_ab_mai_mit_geisterspielen_wieder_starten
This is actually fantastic news, and could very well influence the decision making in UK.
https://www.kicker.de/773106/artikel/bundesliga_soll_ab_mai_mit_geisterspielen_wieder_starten
This is actually fantastic news, and could very well influence the decision making in UK.
It'd be very interesting if Germany managed to finish their season by the summer, yet other major league in Europe didn't.
Presumably European football will/would have to be a write off for 2020/21?
Or some sort of watered down version where fewer teams enter in Jan or something?
It will get voided imo. PL is slowly starting to set the agenda that voiding is a real possibility and when it's generally accepted as the only way by most fans they'll drop the confirmation.
If Germany can get their season done by summer, that's of course good news, but doesn't necessarily mean anything to us, Italy and Spain.
We have much bigger problems.
We will see if they are able to get their plan in place. It should be remembered English football is only currently banned until May 1st as well!
Good point, Only way I can see it happening then is this way and this really really far fetched now:
The last remaining fixtures are played out in September and are counted towards the new season table as well.
Relegated/promoted teams will then swap points positions e.g If Leeds finish 1st, they will swap teams with 18th, 2nd will swap teams with 19th, 3rd with 20th.
The relegated premier league teams will get the same points as these when they go down in the championship.
Yeah, I honestly don't see it happening.
Regarding what that means for European football, pretty much nothing if Germany finish theirs since I agree that we won't see European football for a bit, let alone domestic for that matter.
I am happy for the league to be completed, one way or the other, in order to decide European places and relegation. But I think that we can all agree that this season should not form part of the permanent record books.