It is interesting to hear that UEFA believe that Belgium have jumped the gun by declaring their season over, and naming Bruges as this years Champions. The situation is different in Belgium, as Bruges were 15 points clear with just one game of the normal domestic season remaining, so it is understandable that they were happy to end it now, but UEFA have reiterated their intention to have titles decided on the field rather than in boardrooms.
In a letter, reported by Associated Press, Uefa told all European clubs: “We are confident that football can restart in the months to come — with conditions that will be dictated by public authorities — and believe that any decision of abandoning domestic competitions is, at this stage, premature and not justified,”
“Their work is now focusing on scenarios encompassing the months of July and August, including the possibility that the UEFA competitions restart after the completion of domestic leagues,”
“A joint management of calendars is strictly required as the conclusion of the current season must be coordinated with the start of the new one, which may be partly impacted because of the overstretch.
“Closely following the development of the current situation, the calendar working group will indicate as soon as possible, and ideally by mid-May, which of the plans can be enacted for the completion of the season without leaving anyone behind.”
This is great news for Liverpool, and there is a slight chance it could be good for Arsenal as well in the long run, although I wouldn’t put money on it at the moment. The strange thing is; Arsenal could end the season with a completely different team that started it with, if the transfer window goes ahead as normal…
Ah! The fallacy of good intentions! Now I like optimism and find sensible well founded optimism a great antidote to lifes troubles and woes. But this “idea” is NOT optimism but fantasy, head in the clouds obstinacy and a flat refusal to face facts. Belgium has it right, the season is over, Finished! Finito! It is a dead parrott gone to meet its maker etc. If only John Cleese, as in that immortal parrot sketch, were running our Prem today- he knows something is dead when he sees it!
Now you can call something anything you like by law(within reason, actually) You can label a child a tree or a window a refridgerator but falsely labelling a season which cannot possibly be played to completion this year of 2020, as season 2019-20 as some are trying to do, but in vain, is nonsense. Of course it is.
Only an idiot or a deaf and blind hermit living in a cave these last few weeks and now months, could possibly believe this season is still alive. Whatever happens to restart football ,whenever that is, fairness and an even playing field is now impossible rendering any attempt to complete “this” season as a farce. What needs to happen, ideally today, is for an outbreak of collective realism that this season is a dead parrott and to award th eprizes as positions stand. Thus Liverpool are champs. Norwich, Villa and Bournemouth are relegated and so on. There will be howls of unfairness and legal challenges but, ultimately, if football people in the game wish to keep the game from destroying itself, they will HAVE TO face reality. The way football is going, those within it are killing it as a world sport and are doing do each day. So obviously too.
This is the perfect chance, though most in the game are too dim and self interested to know it, to finally reclaim morality back and kick the corporates who have run our game into touch once and for all. Players in the top level should reduce salaries by 90%, so someone earning say £350,000 pw would then earn £35,000. Someone on £70,000,would earn £7000 and so on. That way ticket prices could come down by at least half, making the game even more popular. Sky and BT Spors could still sponsor but at a lower figure , which would be in line with the new reality of social attitudes everywhere once this virus recedes. People today know better than ever that lifes REAL heroes are those putting their own lives in danger in our NHS and related , essential services. The days of worshipping grotesquely unearned and undeserved players salaries at the cost of ordinary hard pressed fans are over. Some see it only too clearly; others, to their shame, do not!
Such nonsense the crisis will have little impact on football it is not remotely a cataclysmic event (thank god.) Can you provide an actual scientific, moral, financial or any reason why the leagues can not be finished? And then also why the relevant authorities will act on said reason and not simply complete the season with all the obvious upside that has for them? Outside your own personal desire for it to be thus? You have continually ranted throughout this crisis about how they can not be finished but provided no sound reason for why this is the case except vague statements of whimsy.
Sorry Jon but liverpool cannot be declared champions with teams having ten games to go how would second and third place money go and have you even look at the bottom half of the table. Only thing is clear in the league at this moment is that liverpool is the clear winner .
I think the easiest fix is to declare the season void and start a new and for once let some of the money suckers pocket burn. Even season tickets should be carried over.
Jah son, I fully agree with your rational point but what I suggest is IMO, the best way out of an unsolvable position.
Unsolvable in a totally FAIR way, I of course mean. How and when do you propose to play those outstanding games and do you actually think they can be played this yearr? IF you do, I WILL LEAVE IT THERE AS WE WOULD NOT BE ON THE SAME HUMAN WAVELENGTH.
If you don’t, however, then please come on and explain what practical and doable solutions YOU would suggest! I accept my solution is unfair and said so, but believe it is the least unfair way you can cut the cake.
There will be huge problems and legal challenges and my wider overall point is that you risk killing the golden goose altogether by trying to complete the impossible . My pertinent comment about a widespread outbreak of collective realism is the only way through.
The cracks in the way football is organised in England have been apparent for some time with a trail of small clubs becoming bankrupt and at the other end clubs being allowed to be funded by money they do not earn. Then it seems that any would be asset stripper can take control of a club and bring it down, while the Football league and FA look on,
Then there is the fact that the management that controls football is not responsible to anyone but themselves aided and abetted by the silent media, which must surely know ‘the inside story of the Football League Management and the FA’.
i think as a result of covet19 many small clubs will fold unless the management decides to step
in with a rescue plan. Clubs that are neither small or big but in considerable debt could also become bankrupt.
The clubs that are bankrolled by outside sources will get want they want a “Europe Super League.”
As for Arsenal. We are not bankrolled on the contrary for all we know we are ‘rolled over’. We will be left to enjoy the status of mediocre.
snowden, great post:
1. All the billionaire owners currently in the premier league total 12 and they will always ensure their investments are protected, if not by the Premier league, then, as you suggest, a breakaway “super league”, something that Wenger suggested and warned about a long while ago.
If this was to happen, the likes of sky, BT and BBC will ensure they plough money into it.
The only way the “smaller” clubs will survive is to go back to being amateur based, with a north and south division, if there are enough left.
2. The authorities!?!? Does anyone really believe they control football? There is one group of people, who are never questioned, never accountable, never probed and never talked about by the media….the referees in this country, run by a man who rules like a dictator.
They run football, as was proven when fergie had them running around like headless chickens – they granted his every wish, including the notorious “fergie time”, which the media found hilarious!!!
JON – GREAT POST.
your idea regarding salaries I agree with 100% BUT ONLY IF every club, every country affiliated to FIFA agreed to abide by it.
If it’s only our country, it would just see a “talent drain” much like the “brain drain” of years ago.
If a player still cannot have a wonderful lifestyle on £7,000 a week, get their bloodsucking agents to find a better deal outside of there god given talents…quite a few might not survive!!!!
There is, of course, a downside to this however.
It seems a lot of players contribute great sums of monies to charities (as they should in my opinion).
If they decide to stop this, charities would have enormous black holes to fund – I doubt if billionaires like kronkie would jump in to fill the abyss do you?
Kronkie is on record at having made one donation and that was back in 2016 when he donated a million dollars to Trump’s presidential campaign. That for me says everything about the heart set of Kronki
Just now read this post KEN and once again on all things that MATTER , we think alike. At times such as now we can see only too well the relatively unimportance of football in lifes grand scheme. This dawning of that realisation, even among us fanatics on here and around the football world will undoubtedly reclaim a degree of morality back to football from the abyss, where it plunged in increasing stages since 1992 and the Prems birth. The real question is HOW MUCH MORALITY will be regained and that can only be guessed at for now.
With much hindsight, I now regret the maximum football wage ever having been lost. I reckon withinfaltion it would now b earound £5000pk for the Messis, Ronaldos of our game with a bare minimum at PEM level of say £3000 which IS still “wonderful” income in the REAL world.
SIMPLY PUT, I DO NOT AND HAVE NEVER “WORSHIPPED” FOOTBALLERS, AS I DO NOT THINK WHAT EVEN THE BERGKAMPS AND HENRYS ACHIEVE MUCH BENEFITS SOCIETY AS A WHOLE. A HOSPITAL CONSULTANT CONTRIBUTES FAR MORE , SO WHY SHOULD HE/SHE EARN LESS!