Gary Neville has predicted that the Premier League will be delayed again when the Premier League meets with teams today because the Prime Minister didn’t say if top-level sports can resume when he addressed the nation.
The Premier League has been suspended since the start of March after Mikel Arteta became the first person in the competition to contract the coronavirus.
However, with a lot of money to be lost, the Premier League is pushing for the competition to restart so that this campaign can be finished and teams not lose too much money.
There have been talks about its resumption, and several proposals have been discussed on changes to be made. But, there seem to always be a new setback, including players fearing for their safety.
The Government would also have to give a go-ahead before the competition can be resumed, but when Boris Johnson addressed the nation on Sunday, he didn’t expressly give a go-ahead for the competition to resume and Neville has predicted that because of that the Premier League return date would be pushed back again.
This morning, he Tweeted: ‘I’d be surprised if we didn’t see the PL in this meet today bump the “Project Restart” plan down the road again.
‘They’ve been hanging their hat on government guidance. There isn’t anything in that speech last night that will comfort the Players/Dr’s at clubs.’
He followed that with ‘June 12’ and a red ‘X’ next to it.
Neville always has an opinion and is quite often very wrong, one gets the feeling he says stuff just to stay relevant and his non-stop whining about football resuming is now becoming very tiresome, especially when it is absolutely obvious that he is biased against Liverpool and Leeds United.
I agree with Neville, there is nothing to say football can start, it cant be played with any amount of safety and with vital services still short of ppe, people still dying and a very poor restart to this unlockdown, football is irrelevant and should wait until its safe to play, it isnt yet.
By that method then absolutely everything is not safe, no supermarkets, no chemists, no public transport, no deliveries etc. But of course, let’s treat football differently and the millions that make a living from it and let them go destitute and suffer unimaginable consequences. I mean, a supermarket will get far more people through its doors daily than an entire Premier League matchday of 10 games but they the lowly paid so who cares, let’s protect the millionaire footballers.
Yes, I think football should restart in June. Yes, I think it will restart in June but would not be surprised if it is delayed until later in the year.
Agree Admin, nothing is safe safe but somethings are vital and some things aren’t. So vital things need to be introduced first and the things that aren’t vital and can not be safely played or done with social distancing has to wait. Why risk the lives of our vital sevices by playing a game of football, where through playing, even one player or representative, is one person, we dont need catching this virus through. For me any activity whatever it is, if social distancing cannot be achieved, then it should not be done, i dont see Rugby, boxing, football or any contact sport being able to be played in any safe manner at all.
Sport is being introduced worldwide now, in countries better prepared and a hell of a lot worse prepared than the UK. The consequences of allowing this industry (sport) to basically fail will cost millions of jobs and lives. Poverty, which will surely follow is a huge killer, as is mental issues and so much more. OIf course football is not a critical industry but neither is building a road or opening a garden centre and so forth. All I ask for is fairness, I hear so often that football should not be a special case and I agree. It should be treated the same as any other non-essential industry and not used as a convenient punchbag.
Football is no worse than any other sector that routinely abuses us, the people. We are treated like cattle on aeroplanes, pay huge taxes for substandard services, 2 weeks wait for GP appointments, extortionate prices at pubs and restaurants, ridiculous car tax costs, utterly abhorrent TV license fees and so on and this is not political, this has been the case for decades under multiple Governments. At least when I am being fleeced by so many that I get enjoyment from watching football. Again, why is it always football that is the punchbag? Not Ryanair, not Weatherspoons, not Specsavers, the list is endless.
I agree quite a bit with Reggie
Now that the Government has tentatively stated that sport played behind closed doors could/may restart after the beginning of June a couple of issues would need to be more clear. One is the agreement by the PL that everyone is on board and more importantly to me, that the new measures have not caused a spike in the infection rate due to the easing of some restrictions. There are the issues that Reggie raises regarding personal safety- either within the footballing fraternity or the public. PPE as he says is in short supply. There are still many hurdles not least, caring about care and medical staffs’ safety
I suspect the medical staff would prefer to be on duty at a game that is very sterile as opposed to a hospital where the disease is rampant. It should also be noted that the NHS is not overrun, they can cope and are in fact less busy now than they have ever been. As for PPE, that is on the Government and not football. If football gets PPE which they are privately sourcing the question should be why has the Government not been able to do what football has managed to do. Spain, which one can agree I am sure is equal to the UK in terms of the severity of the outbreak, is starting on 12th June. Why is it that the UK and its sport is held to such a different standard?
Admin
I think the thrust of my remarks were that two criteria should be met – as in the agreement of the PL and how the time between now and restart looks like in Covid infection numbers
I agree that NHS has not been overrun but what has happened is that countless thousands of treatments and operations have been sidelined in the wake of the pandemic. Getting the whole population back on track is important too. I also cannot deny that the return of football would lift the spirits of the many and ensure that it survives.
Football will not be allowed to return until it is deemed acceptable, no one is suggesting it should be brought back until such a time that infection rates drop to an acceptable level and that will happen quite quickly. The stats back this up in every country. It will never be 100% safe until a vaccine or treatment is found but life simply must go on, society cannot stay in lockdown forever and an acceptable degree of risk will become the new norm.
That will be the new norm, why you cannot understand that I do not know. Those same people will die regardless of whether a pub is open or a football game played or a garden centre open. This will not stop until a vaccine is found and if society is to have any chance then we have to accept the reality that there will be an acceptable risk to life, however repugnant that may be because the alternative will be far worse. Do you want to see society breakdown? Then let’s keep lockdown in place until there is no more deaths and a vaccine found and watch and witness.
As long as you apply that standard to every other non-essential industry then fine but if you think society will accept that across the board then you are not being realistic in my opinion.
Absolutely no idea what this comment was about but I have noticed that you have so far not retracted your false statement about Ozil articles and that is how I judge people. By their actions and not their words.
Unless you have been living on Mars admin, the reason that as you so frivolously put that the NHS is coping better (but care homes are not) is purely because we have been in lockdown and starved the virus. For anyone to say that we have now made room to start football or any other contact sport because it is safe or more easily coped with because we have dropped the numbers, is totally irresponsible. The virus is still there, it isn’t going away, it will come back again and the overworked frontline workers who have been risking their lives deserve more respect than putting things back into place to reversed the trend we have created by isolating ourselves. Football is an unnecessary risk because it cannot be played without risking lives. I will ask you a question, what happens when a game is played and two days later a player tests positive for covid, what happens to the other 21 players playing against or with him in that game? And what potential damage can it do? Is a sport really worth risking peoples lives, i dont think so. And please, my wife is a nurse dealing with covid patients and she is still dealing with covid patients. Whether you say it is better or less hectic on the frontline, without actually being there, with respect, you are not one to judge, they are still seeing people die every week. Yes it is better but there are very good reasons for that and those people who have been working their butts off dont need needless decisions changing that.
As is usual with those that do not like opposite views they brand an opposing view as frivolous or whatever but I will ignore it as I do with the minority on here that use that tactic so often. Nothing you have said explains top me why football should be held to a higher standard than any other non-essential industry. Please note that word, I use it so often and it is always ignored, non-essential. Now, you ask about what if a player tests positive, what happens to the other 21. Well, I am surprised that you ask that with the answer being so obvious, the other 21 are tested and then they carry on. You ask is sport worth risking lives, is opening a garden centre worth risking lives? Why do you single out sport? I have yet to hear a single arguemnt why sport should be treated any different to any other non-essential sector of our society. Finally, I have three members of my family on the frontline including my son, there is no need for you to throw that in because it does not add or detract any weight to your opinion.
With due respect another ill informed answer. The test center i work for has a back log of 16000 people because the Labs cant cope with the amount of tests that they are asked to do. The center is set up for 2000 people a day, the most we have been able to get through is 650. Yesterday day we shut two assisted test lanes because Boots didn’t have any PPE, we expect that we wont get it tomorrow either. The NHS cant cope with another spike and regardless of what you hear from Boris the bafoon, our test centers are not coping with the demand for tests. We need sports and any other needless pastime like a hole in the head. We have frontline workers not able to get a needed test and you want to block it even more with footballers!
It is not me ill-informed Reggie. The Premier League have already said they will source and pay for their own PPE and tests and will take nothing from the NHS. Also, the reason there is no football right now in England is because of the issues you highlighted and football would only return once these issues are resolved.
I do believe with what i have seen, now we are coming out of lockdown without a real plan, the spike will inevitably come and we will be back to square one, quicker than we think.
Perhaps someone could explain to me how footballers should be exempt from the current social distancing restrictions while the general public are obliged to live within these parameters?
They are not exempt. They are not playing right now, any training is done on an individual basis, soon the number of people allowed to congregate together will rise, probably to 5 or 10 to start then up to 50. I know this because this is exactly the way it is being done in countries ahead of the UK.
So you are suggesting that football will not be allowed to resume until the public are free to congregate in fairly large numbers?
Not large numbers, I would guess about 50 people will cover it. That is how it is being done elsewhere. For example, in Norway, the number is 50 and that has allowed the Norwegian FA to announce the date for football return.
Interesting to cite the example of Norway where the death total is currently 224 as against our 32,065.
I cite Norway because only yesterday their Prime Minister announced the gradual lifting of lockdown and is the most current situation, I could give you USA states like Alaska where the number is 20 people or France which is currently 10. No idea why you think it would be interesting that I cite Norway as an example when deaths have absolutely nothing to do with countries implementing rules on how many people can gather before football can return. There has to come a point when people are allowed to gather in certain numbers and when a certain number is reached, regardless of the country, sport is then allowed to return behind closed doors. No idea why you would ask a question to then question the motivation behind an answer.
I am sure you are right
Your daughter and my husband are the ones who will have to put up with a VERY different life for a very long time whilst bit by bit a ‘relative’ normal will return for the rest of the country. More will get the virus and recover than don’t and governments all over the world will have to manage it. A bit grim really but a reality we are facing as a couple along with others in the same boat.
Covid will be with us for a long time and hopefully drugs and/or a vaccine will give the most vulnerable a shot at freedom to then be able to join in again
The PM’s press conference has just finished and they have admitted that there may never be a vaccine, in better words we have to live with it but if you listen to the non-experts like Jon Fox we have to have nothing that is non-essential until a vaccine is found. So, no more sport, no pubs, no concerts, mass poverty and so on because some simply will not accept the reality of the situation and prefer to wear a badge of honour on their sleeves declaring they are different to everyone else. People really do need to wake up an accept thi9s is it, this is the new norm, this is all our lives and the quicker we all get on board the better we will all cope with the dark days ahead.
I,m very sorry you don’t get the moral point I am trying to make as I was under the impression it was self evident.We are poles apart when it comes to this particular subject Martin but this will be my last words on what has rightly become a highly emotive matter which has to my mind been handled sensibly by the Governments of France, Holland and Belgium.
It has become highly emotive because some, like yourself sadly and Jon Fox, which one expects from him anyway, questions others morality simply because they take a different point of view. When emotive words, phrases and statements are used then it is no surprise that the subject then becomes emotive.
At last someone finally putting a stop to Jon and is plan trying to takeover the world by keeping strong healthy people confined. Thank you Mr Admin