Covid and Football

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Comments

  • thornburyironthornburyiron
    I can’t see many, if any, of Aslef’s points actually happening.

    1. Not many of the clubs in European comps will give up the opportunity to compete, even with a mixture of academy and experienced players, in the EFL cup because if they get through the early rounds then they get closer to reaching a final. Also if they opt out they could be eliminated from Europe fairly early and then rue opting out.

    2. Money rules football and cutting the PL to 18 teams cuts 74 fixtures off the calendar and that would be a huge chunk of money the TV companies won’t be paying for. match receipts also would be a factor.

    3. When would you have a break. The first 3 weeks of January include 2 rounds of the cup which most of the big clubs play weakened teams anyway. Is it just a break for the PL because in the championship they play 8 more league games a season anyway. I can see the PL saying that clubs have squads of 25 players and as only somewhere in the region of 14-16 play most weeks the others are resting anyway.
  • Dodger58Dodger58
    I very much agree with 1 above and have raised in the past.

    The problem for the UK with an official Winter Break is when to schedule it. In the past there has almost always been an effective break due to bad weather, but when that bad weather hits is not predictable. So if we take a break during good weather and then bad weather hits later, we will get the same fixture congestion mess.

    The congestion is mainly for the clubs playing in Europe and this is due to the changing formats of European Competition away from the old knock-out structure to Leagues where there are a number of fairly pointless (but lucrative) matches before the competition gets serious.

    I realise COVID is not a 'break' but it has effectively given a break to some teams and we are all suspicious of some clubs' in how postponements have been made.

    The other part of this that annoys me, is how many clubs will use a break for a lucrative trip to play Bob's Uncle FC in Outer Mongolia - thus giving their players the required and deserved rest (sic).

    Leave the matches as they are and if Clubs in Europe want to sit out one (or even both) Cup competitions they should be free to do so.
  • ASLEFshruggedASLEFshrugged
    edited January 2022
    If teams could opt out of the League Cup UEFA would remove the Europa League place that goes to the winner and award it to 7th (???) place in the Premier League (which is what happens in other European countries)

    Reducing the Premier League to 18 makes sense but unfortunately it would need 14 Premier League clubs to vote for it. Probably best to hold that vote in the summer...

    Winter breaks 2021/22 season

    Germany 20 Dec - 6 Jan
    Spain 23 Dec - 30 Dec
    Italy 23 Dec - 5 Jan
    France 23 Dec - 6 Jan

    Officially the Premier League had a winter break between 4 and 14 Jan but obviously they played FA Cup matches in the middle. If the winter break was to cover the first two or three weeks of January the FA Cup 3rd round would have to be played the first weekend back

    Other European countries have an FA that arranges all fixtures, we have the FA, the Premier League and the Football League. That is the first thing I would change!
  • IronHerbIronHerb
    Just carry on as we are imo. Fed up with moaning managers. Klopp, Pep and Tuchel in particular have all moaned about player welfare but Liverpool use about 15-16 players, Chelsea put out a full strength team against non league opposition and Pep has not, as far as I can make out, not rotated half as much as usual.
  • MrsGreyMrsGrey
    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/60030994

    The Premier League is looking into changing its guidance around match postponements after criticism over the number of games being called off.


    New guidelines could be in place for 8 February.

    So how to make a bad situation worse?

    Change the rules half way though.
  • buffybegoodbuffybegood
    edited January 2022
    MrsGrey said:

    So how to make a bad situation worse?

    Change the rules half way though.

    Better than leaving a rule that's being abused by certain clubs in place, imo. They're announcing the change ahead of time, so I don't see an issue.

  • IronHerbIronHerb
    But we don't know it was being abused. I think it was Brendon Rodgers who said earlier this week that if you couldn't muster 13+1 after injuries, suspensions, AFCON and covid then you could have the game called off.
  • MrsGreyMrsGrey
    edited January 2022
    buffybegood said:

    MrsGrey said:

    So how to make a bad situation worse?

    Change the rules half way though.

    Better than leaving a rule that's being abused by certain clubs in place, imo. They're announcing the change ahead of time, so I don't see an issue.

    Because a team gets a game called off under one system, but a team later in the season is forced to play all the kids because they aren't allowed to ( for example) count injured players in their list of unavailable players.

    So team A got to delay their game until they had senior players available. Team B didn't and, by virtue of the rules, had to field a weakened team when, if the goalposts hadn't been moved, they too could have fielded a fuller strength team.

  • MrsGreyMrsGrey
    Imagine they decided midway through the season that, for example, a change to the sub quotas. Bench + number allowed in a match.
    As long as they tell you in advance, is that ok?
  • ScotHammerScotHammer
    Who do we think will be the first manager to complain about fixture congestion later this season? Klopp, Arteta, Dyche, Conte?
    I’m crying for them already!! 😢🤣⚒
  • buffybegoodbuffybegood
    IronHerb said:

    But we don't know it was being abused. I think it was Brendon Rodgers who said earlier this week that if you couldn't muster 13+1 after injuries, suspensions, AFCON and covid then you could have the game called off.

    Why would they be changing it if it isn't being abused?🤔🤔🤔
  • buffybegoodbuffybegood
    edited January 2022
    MrsGrey said:

    Imagine they decided midway through the season that, for example, a change to the sub quotas. Bench + number allowed in a match.
    As long as they tell you in advance, is that ok?

    They did that when they introduced extra subs after the first lockdown, so it's hardly unprecedented, and there have been calls to do the same again this season, mid-season.
  • IronHerbIronHerb
    buffybegood said:

    IronHerb said:

    But we don't know it was being abused. I think it was Brendon Rodgers who said earlier this week that if you couldn't muster 13+1 after injuries, suspensions, AFCON and covid then you could have the game called off.

    Why would they be changing it if it isn't being abused?🤔🤔🤔
    Because it's not transparent.
  • MrsGreyMrsGrey
    edited January 2022
    buffybegood said:

    MrsGrey said:

    Imagine they decided midway through the season that, for example, a change to the sub quotas. Bench + number allowed in a match.
    As long as they tell you in advance, is that ok?

    They did that when they introduced extra subs after the first lockdown, so it's hardly unprecedented, and there have been calls to do the same again this season, mid-season.
    If it's wrong it's wrong. Not less wrong because they did something else wrong last season. Or that other people thing an additional wrong thing should be done.
  • MrsGreyMrsGrey
    IronHerb said:

    buffybegood said:

    IronHerb said:

    But we don't know it was being abused. I think it was Brendon Rodgers who said earlier this week that if you couldn't muster 13+1 after injuries, suspensions, AFCON and covid then you could have the game called off.

    Why would they be changing it if it isn't being abused?🤔🤔🤔
    Because it's not transparent.
    If the premier League think that the criticism of lack of transparency, so people don't have confidence in the mechanism of postponements, is justified... I find it hard to accept that they'll change the rules instead of actually addressing the problem and just making it more transparent.

    New rules, old rules - if people don't trust those applying them, it matters not what the rules are. The issue is how to get people to trust that they are being applied fairly and consistently.

    Fail
  • Pearces_Left_FootPearces_Left_Foot
    When a game gets called off they should publish the list of players missing and give the reason for each player maybe . I think it will still be easy for a club to claim a few false positives to have players available suddenly when it suits them
  • MrsGreyMrsGrey
    Pearces_Left_Foot said:

    When a game gets called off they should publish the list of players missing and give the reason for each player maybe . I think it will still be easy for a club to claim a few false positives to have players available suddenly when it suits them

    They can't be too specific, because of patient confidentiality. They could say ' illness' I suppose.
    But for me, I don't think we have a right to know... The info you say goes like that to the pl. They check it. I don't feel it's my business or my job :-)

    ( I'm a big fan of delegation )
  • ASLEFshruggedASLEFshrugged
    edited January 2022
    I suspect its nothing to do with clubs "abusing" the current system rather its Sky and other broadcasters complaining that they've paid a lot of money to show games that are being called off
  • FortuneseekerFortuneseeker
    ASLEF, They still get to show them when they are rearranged like BT did this week.
  • ASLEFshruggedASLEFshrugged
    That still leaves a big gap in the schedule on the day the match is supposed to be played and I imagine weekend viewing figures are a lot higher than midweek. Not just Sky and the broadcasters, the advertisers will have paid for ads in the breaks that very few people saw.

    I would imagine there are a load of clauses in the various contracts that money has to be repaid if matches don't go ahead so someone somewhere is out-of-pocket.

    Also worth noting that its the Premier League clubs that will vote on whether to change the rules on abandoning matches

    And its not just the Premier League, in Italy the government are considering rule changes that will allow teams to travel after four Serie A games were abandoned due to local restrictions
  • Pearces_Left_FootPearces_Left_Foot
    https://www.football365.com/news/opinion-bristol-city-losses-pandemic-championship-opinion
  • KuchinghammerKuchinghammer
    Orders, counter-orders, disorder. Said to be an old army joke.
  • buffybegoodbuffybegood
    Clubs now need a minimum of 4 Covid cases to get considered for a postponement

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/60135824
  • MunichHammerMunichHammer
    Now what will they do if a club asks for postponement and then the following day the players in question are miraculously healthy again and the clubs blame it on false positives?
  • FortuneseekerFortuneseeker
    Munich, Don’t get any testing kits from whoever supplied Liverpool with theirs the other week. 😉
  • MrsGreyMrsGrey
    Presumably they'll have to submit ( initially) evidence of positive tests. Which may get the game postponed.
    Unless they want a subsequent game postponed, they won't have to provide medical info again to the PL.

    I thought it is perfectly normal to have a positive test at one point and a negative test the next time you test. I mean, at some point you are positive and at some point you are negative. It's an either or

    Nothing inherently dodgy about that at all. Surely.

    There's a separate issue of whether or not medical departments will falsify results. The PL can put in place safeguards to try to prevent this. But a positive test followed by a negative test isn't anything suspicious.
  • MunichHammerMunichHammer
    True, Mrs G but if they are positive they would be expected to quarantine a while. Now let's say it's a midweek game, tje players in question play on Sunday, the midweek game gets postpomed and they play again on Saturday. The postponement will have given them a break AND a good idea what the teams around them have done.
  • KuchinghammerKuchinghammer
    It's still basically a nonsense. Anything to do with personnel will open the door to clubs bending the rules. After the Munich air crash, Manchester United played on, and reached the FA Cup final. That should still be the benchmark.IMO
  • IronHerbIronHerb
    Arsenal are facing a major fixture pile up following their 'controversial' covid postponement of the game away to Spurs.

    They also have to rearrange a covid hit game at home to Wolves. On top of that they were due to play Chelsea away next week but that has had to be postponed due to Chelsea being involved in a World Club Championship match. To top it off Arsenal were due to play at home to Liverpool on the weekend of the League Cup Final so they will be four games down.

    This also means they will only play twice this month.
  • ASLEFshruggedASLEFshrugged
    And Arsenal managed to reduce their first team squad from 25 to 21

    There are going to be a lot of tired legs by the time we play them at the end of April =)
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