Post
by H1987 » Thu Mar 26, 2020 11:06 am
I honestly believe there will be a strong desire for us to complete the season, and for that reason, there will not be a decision anytime soon.
That said, I can't see practically how the season can continue after the end of June due to the end of players contracts and loan contracts. Some teams are bound to be more heavily affected by those circumstances than others, and the sporting integrity goes out of the window if completely different teams end up finishing the season. I really don't see how you can promote and relegate anyone if the season is not completed. I've seen a lot of Leeds fans proclaiming the idea that they are already promoted, but they're only 7 points clear of Fulham with 9 games to go. That is not, by any measure, a done deal. Perhaps even more importantly, the relegation places in respective leagues are nearly all up to play for.
If the season is ended you could perhaps 'elect' a team to the football league to make up for Bury's absence (so the football league teams vote to allow the current top side in - Barrow). You could maybe even do the same to elect Liverpool as champions, but I don't see really see how in the heck you promote and relegate sides from most of the leagues when there is still a lot to play for. The thing is - you can't really play those games fairly if some teams lose a bunch of players and others don't. There's also the potential situation where - if things do change - as they will over time, some parts of the country will be more affected by quarantine measures than others. So I would expect London could end up locked down for longer - meaning their teams can't train while others can...
There are no easy answers, but I think rushing it is the last thing we should be doing. Ultimately, I feel like the longer this goes on, the less likely it is that we complete the season. There's the potential that the break ends up being longer than the average pre-season... and players won't have been able to train properly either. Does completing a season at breakneck speed, with unfit players behind closed doors really provide a better ending to the season than simply abandoning it? To me, I don't think it does, and I think it has the potential to provide even more unfair results to the clubs with less financial means. Some people are going to feel unfairly done by either way, but that is life. I'm sure all of us have lost something from this pandemic - whether it is work, travel plans (I have lost both), or in the worst-case scenario, loved ones. The idea that we can't lose some football is just nonsense.