Football & Coronavirus

Flipper the Priest said:
I believe a variety of proposals for a shortened 2020/21 season should be agreed. Fewer rounds of fixtures in leagues, removal of group stages in cup competitions, or cup competitions altogether. Play 2019/20 to a conclusion whenever we can and start next season whenever we can. At least a shortened season would be fair and equal.
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Totally agree with this. Finish this season whenever it can be restarted and ideally at a time fans can attend otherwise really what's the point? Make 'next' season a season where teams play each other just once, only have the nation's FA Cup, no league cups etc. Should be able to play that out in about 4 months with midweek matches. Depending when it can start though then it'll run into problems because UEFA won't move the EURO's for it so it'll have to be wrapped up before then. Plus the Champions League will have to be played because we can't go all season without that cash cow can we. Also without it where's the glory in finishing fourth? :ROLL:

Flipper the Priest said:
All said, commercial agreements will decide the outcome. The integrity of the competition won't stand in their way.
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Isn't that the truth.
 
Here in Belgium, clubs decided to stop the competition and leave the standings just as they were before the corona lockdown. The decision is taken but definitive, there is still some governing body that has to confirm it (but everybody except that it will be confirmed).

Most people in Belgium (me included) think it's a very wise decision, health is the most important factor right now.

We have a very special competition format. Our Jupiler League (first devision) has 16 clubs. They all play each other twice. And then the first 6 ranked clubs play play-offs (the others and some second division clubs contest play-offs too, but nobody cares about these). Before the lockdown, clubs had played 29 of the 30 matches in the regular competition. Before the play-offs it was already obvious that Club Brugge would be champions, they have an advantage of 15 points. So everybody agrees that Brugge are the deserved champions.

Financially, Belgian professional clubs will face a hard time, this was already the case before corona and the lockdown. We have 24 professional clubs (16 in the highest division - called 1A- and 8 in the second - called 1B and a real travesty). Every year in april those clubs have to get a license from the Belgian FA. This license is our form of Financial Fair Play. At the moment 7 clubs will not get a license because they have severe financial problems (once again: before corona). Among them there is one huge club (in Belgium): Standard. Anderlecht passed the test narrowly. That club is ourt Bayern Munchen or Juventus... When push come to shove only 3 Belgian clubs are financially sound: Club Brugge, AA Gent and Racing Genk (my favourite club). They are doing welle because they have a fabulous scouting network and they can sell their best players each year... A club like Genk is the laughing stock of the CL because each time they win the title they loose their best players (in the last year: Samatta, Berge, Trossard, Malinovsky and Pozuelo), but they don't take financial risks. And are a well run club, the same goes for both other clubs.

The clubs like Standard who didn't get a licence can go in appeal before the BAS (that is the Belgian version of the TAS) and until now every club who went in appeal obtained the license, but it seems that now some clubs will disappear (notably Mouscron, a club that is owned by a player's agent). Everybody agrees that Standard will obtain the license, but this does not change the fact that they are in dire straits, financially.

One more thing. UEFA did not agree that our competition stopped. The BElgian FA and the Jupiler League got a letter from UEFA and from the big clubs that they had hoped Belgium would show solidarity. Most footbal lfans were outraged by that letter. Solidarity? Does those clubs show financial solidarity with the clubs from the small market? I don't think so. We have the number one national team in the world for some years now. Yet, all these players play for foreign clubs because of the difference of television money. Solidarity? My ass.
 
Stan said:
Here in Belgium, clubs decided to stop the competition and leave the standings just as they were before the corona lockdown. The decision is taken but definitive, there is still some governing body that has to confirm it (but everybody except that it will be confirmed).

Most people in Belgium (me included) think it's a very wise decision, health is the most important factor right now.

We have a very special competition format. Our Jupiler League (first devision) has 16 clubs. They all play each other twice. And then the first 6 ranked clubs play play-offs (the others and some second division clubs contest play-offs too, but nobody cares about these). Before the lockdown, clubs had played 29 of the 30 matches in the regular competition. Before the play-offs it was already obvious that Club Brugge would be champions, they have an advantage of 15 points. So everybody agrees that Brugge are the deserved champions.

Financially, Belgian professional clubs will face a hard time, this was already the case before corona and the lockdown. We have 24 professional clubs (16 in the highest division - called 1A- and 8 in the second - called 1B and a real travesty). Every year in april those clubs have to get a license from the Belgian FA. This license is our form of Financial Fair Play. At the moment 7 clubs will not get a license because they have severe financial problems (once again: before corona). Among them there is one huge club (in Belgium): Standard. Anderlecht passed the test narrowly. That club is ourt Bayern Munchen or Juventus... When push come to shove only 3 Belgian clubs are financially sound: Club Brugge, AA Gent and Racing Genk (my favourite club). They are doing welle because they have a fabulous scouting network and they can sell their best players each year... A club like Genk is the laughing stock of the CL because each time they win the title they loose their best players (in the last year: Samatta, Berge, Trossard, Malinovsky and Pozuelo), but they don't take financial risks. And are a well run club, the same goes for both other clubs.

The clubs like Standard who didn't get a licence can go in appeal before the BAS (that is the Belgian version of the TAS) and until now every club who went in appeal obtained the license, but it seems that now some clubs will disappear (notably Mouscron, a club that is owned by a player's agent). Everybody agrees that Standard will obtain the license, but this does not change the fact that they are in dire straits, financially.

One more thing. UEFA did not agree that our competition stopped. The BElgian FA and the Jupiler League got a letter from UEFA and from the big clubs that they had hoped Belgium would show solidarity. Most footbal lfans were outraged by that letter. Solidarity? Does those clubs show financial solidarity with the clubs from the small market? I don't think so. We have the number one national team in the world for some years now. Yet, all these players play for foreign clubs because of the difference of television money. Solidarity? My ass.
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How did the fans take it? Especially of the bigger rivals?

Scotland's such a bizarre case. 42 teams in the senior leagues is far too many of a country of 5m people; you're talking average attendances ranging from 57,000 to 300. Trying to find some kind of accord across all 42 clubs is impossible.

Also, Scotland relies on on ticket/gate receipts more than any other country in Europe. Officially. So it's really hitting clubs hard. We need harmony and/or strong leadership - we're so far away from either.
 
As far as i know most fans are ok with it.
My favourite team is Genk, but i live 2 km's from the stadium of KV Mechelen and i'm a season ticket holder there because i like football and Genk is more than 100 km away (i don't drive cars). The last match was Genk-Mechelen and was a decider for the 6th play-off place. J had a ticket for that match...

But Genk had a bad season and they don't deserve to play in europe, so i don't see any problem.

Anderlecht could also ened in the 6th play-off place if their was no winner in Genk-Mechelen and if they won their last match. So Anderlecht will not play in Europe. They asked solidarity that the clubs in Europe share the TV-money (like in Germany) from their European matches.

This caused outrage with other clubs because Anderlecht are also in dire straits financially and their plea for solidarity is very self-serving.

Today i saw the result of a study about wich clubs delivered most players to the big 5 competitions. Unsurprisingly Ajax was number 1 before Benfica and Red Bull Salzburg. Genk was 6th, NAderlecht 10th and Club Brugge 11th. SO our competiotion is a very good stepping stone to bigger leagues...
 
Surely letting current standings be final is better than scrapping the whole thing, in most leagues. It at least means the games you watched last season have some meaning. Otherwise you just payed (whether you were there or watching tv) for a bunch of friendlies.
 
The EFL are fully expected to announce next week that the English Football League will be coming to an end.

They are going to calculate promotion and relegation based on points per game.

However certain clubs have come out and stated that if this happens then they will start legal proceedings against the EFL, as some teams with 9 games left have 5 home games.
 
bsmaff said:
The EFL are fully expected to announce next week that the English Football League will be coming to an end.

They are going to calculate promotion and relegation based on points per game.

However certain clubs have come out and stated that if this happens then they will start legal proceedings against the EFL, as some teams with 9 games left have 5 home games.
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What I don't get is, why not do "average points per home game" for the home games and vice versa?

Seems like an easy thing to do to make what is going to be unfair anyway, slightly fairer.
 
Great idea Chris but that's too sensible isn't it! It would make it a little bit fairer at least.

In League 1, third to eighth are all within one point of each other and on PPG Wycombe in 8th will be promoted as they've played a game less. They have by far the worst goal difference too.

Wouldn't it be better for the 'play off' promotion spot to take all the teams who are already in a play off spot and say all those teams who are within a certain number of points of a play off spot (perhaps 6pts?). Then create a mini table only from games between those teams. Then whoever has the highest PPG gets the play off promotion spot. Surely that would be a much fairer way to decide the play off spot? I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be us either as we've lost to most of them away so I'm not being biased.


I just can't see any way how this is going to work. There's no way clubs are going to accept relegation when there are games left surely? Particularly any with a game(s) in hand. If the Premier league stops too there's not a chance in hell that Aston Villa would accept relegation without a legal fight.
 
Can't be bothered getting involved in talking about what should or shouldn't happen, when or how etc. Just thought this was interesting...

After the same number of gameweeks (29) in the 14/15 season, Leicester were rock bottom of the league, 7 points from safety.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/pre...le/wettbewerb/GB1?saison_id=2014&min=1&max=29

They then won 7 of the remaining 9 games to the survive, and we all know what happened the following season...

Norwich, who look dead and buried, are one point closer to safety than Leicester were after 29 games.
 
Chris Davies said:
What I don't get is, why not do "average points per home game" for the home games and vice versa?

Seems like an easy thing to do to make what is going to be unfair anyway, slightly fairer.
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They have narrowed it down to 3 options on what to propose for the outcomes of the EFL.
Which will be decided in a vote.

The 3 options are apparently:-
Points per game - Over the same number of games.
Finish as they are, no matter how many games are in hand.
Have play offs between the teams who are in the mix - So for instance in League 2 there would be a play off games played between the top 5, where the top four from the 5 will be promoted.
 
Could prove to be a mistake but watching Borussia Schalke game, glad footy is back, but here's hoping it has no repurcussions.
 
@PeterC10 I watched the Dortmund game yesterday. Although it was quite a good game it also felt sort of like a pre season friendly, the intensity wasn't there (particularly considering it was a derby) and I'm sure that was in no small part because there was no crowd and probably a bit because it was almost like a first pre season game in terms of a bit of rustiness and match fitness lacking.

I also found it very hard to get that into it with no atmosphere and I haven't bothered watching any others so far.

Nice that it's a step back though and all seemed to go well enough. I bet the refs will love this no crowds period, at least they can make decisions without getting slaughtered by the crowd :)
 
I'm pretty sure refs also ply their trade with crowd.
 
I've often wondered how much of watching a football match is about atmosphere. The games over the weekend would suggest: quite a lot.

Crowds are quite low at Scottish games (although it's per head the best-supported league in Europe, so it's more accurate to say the stadiums are too big) and sometimes atmospheres close to nonexistent. It's hard to take those games... seriously. Make that the Bundesliga - with a far higher standard of football - and I think the same is true. TV viewers need their physical counterparts to feed from.

The psychology of it is strange. In the K-League coverage they've piped in crowd noise. You know it's manufactured, and subsequently quite pathetic, but it takes the edge off the eery silence and it's the better for it in my opinion.
 
Ah well. That's the Premiership called. Celtic win, Hearts relegated. Again. Adjusted for PPG only two teams moved in the standings.

Primarily a financial motivation: now the prize money will be paid out. Financial fallout now lies with fans and players. I've (and every Aberdeen season ticket holder) already been emailed to say you're entitled to a refund for what's left of the season, but please don't take it for the good of the club. And I've already paid for next season's ticket. I'll take the hit, answer the call.

But then there's the players. The nature of Scottish football means there are a lot of short-term contracts and, subsequently, a lot of players out of contract in June. Do the clubs let them go jobless with no football to play elsewhere? Do the clubs keep them on the books and furloughed just to give them income? Dilemmas are afoot.
 
Flipper the Priest said:
I've often wondered how much of watching a football match is about atmosphere. The games over the weekend would suggest: quite a lot.

Crowds are quite low at Scottish games (although it's per head the best-supported league in Europe, so it's more accurate to say the stadiums are too big) and sometimes atmospheres close to nonexistent. It's hard to take those games... seriously. Make that the Bundesliga - with a far higher standard of football - and I think the same is true. TV viewers need their physical counterparts to feed from.

The psychology of it is strange. In the K-League coverage they've piped in crowd noise. You know it's manufactured, and subsequently quite pathetic, but it takes the edge off the eery silence and it's the better for it in my opinion.
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Each team gets to choose 90mins worth of music tracks for each season.
Any music track from around the globe.
Each track must be 4mins or less.
Each team's track list can have 5 same tracks.
Team that kicks off starts with their chosen track.
The next track goes to the opposition .
On scoring, that teams track stops and opponent teams track plays.

Same for second half.

If there's going to be no crowd, then this is the way to go. Collaboration between music industry and the footy game (as we see in out video games) and you've basically brought both the music industry and sports industry back to life.

The mind games you could see plus the entertainment value could be amazing IMO as well as providing some musical goodness.

What we had before was something. What you look for going forward is better.

(PS I'm not on psychedelics)
 
Flipper the Priest said:
I've often wondered how much of watching a football match is about atmosphere. The games over the weekend would suggest: quite a lot.

Crowds are quite low at Scottish games (although it's per head the best-supported league in Europe, so it's more accurate to say the stadiums are too big) and sometimes atmospheres close to nonexistent. It's hard to take those games... seriously. Make that the Bundesliga - with a far higher standard of football - and I think the same is true. TV viewers need their physical counterparts to feed from.

The psychology of it is strange. In the K-League coverage they've piped in crowd noise. You know it's manufactured, and subsequently quite pathetic, but it takes the edge off the eery silence and it's the better for it in my opinion.
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On German Sky Sport they are producing a secondary sound option which includes the usual atmosphere with chants for the Bundesliga games. I tried that over the weekend and it is just wrong. It's way too weird to hear chants while seeing a match with empty stands. I rather use the normal sound option even when it's unusual and quiet.
 
An update on the Jupiler League. In March (the 18th i think) the prof league decided to end the competition. The decision was taken, but the clubs kept discussing about the modalities. We have 16 clubs in first division and 8 more in the second. Our competition format is one with all sorts of play-offs, to difficult to explain and i'm not sure if my explanation would be correct.
What you need to know. Our first division clubs (we call them 1A clubs, 1B is the second division) play each other twice (30 matches) and then the top six play each other twice in play-offs. Before the start of the p^lay-offs the point are halved. So if the leaders have a margin of 4 points after the regular competition, then they start the play-offs 2 point ahead of the second (and frankly i like that system).

The competition stopped after 29 matches. Club Brugge were leaders 15 point ahead of the second. Theoretically they could still loose the title in the play-offs, but their situation is like LIverpool, the yare by far the best team, deserve to be champions and nobody doubted that they would also be champions after the play-offs. The team could still relegate, but it would have taken a miracle for Beveren not to be last (only one relgation team here).
5 of the 6 play-off teams were certain. the sixthe place was between Mechelen (i'm a season ticket holder, 3 km for our house), kRC Genk( my favourite team) and Anderlecht (our Man United). At the last day, Genk had to play Mechelen in Genk. A draw was enough for Mechelen if Anderlecht did not win it's match. If Gen kwould have won, they were sixth and Anderlecht had to win and Mechelen-Genk had to end in a draw.

Our second division (1B) is weird. There are 8 teams. Clubs play each other 4 times. There are two periods (cfr South America, Apertua and Clausura). The winner of the two periods pal a final (home and away) and the club that wins the final gets promotion. The final was between Beerschot and OH Leuven (same owner as Leicester).Beerschot won the first match 1-0. The second match in Leuven still has to be played.

Now the prof league had a work group to make a proposal about next season. the proposal for next season was: one year with 18 clubs in first division. That means that Brugge are champions, Gent (second) also has the chance to play CL or else Euro League and Charleroi, Antwerp and Standard play Euro League (Gent was second, Charleroi third, etc). There would be no relegation and both Beerschot and OH Leuven get promotion. But next season 3 team will relegate. Next season there would be no play-offs.

This was proposed to all the professional clubs, but they didn't accept it. What wil happen now? Brugge are champions and Beveren go to 1B. Beerschot and OH Leuven havce to play their second match to see who get promotion, but if they don't Westerlo gets promotion (reason if you count both periods together, Westerlo has most points more than both Beerschot and Leuven).

Brugge are champions but only idf they payed a solidarity amount to all the other clubs. Then the clubs decided that Genk, Anderlecht and Mechelen should get the biggest part of that money (i don't understand why). In Belgium there ar 3 clubs that are well manged: Genk (the richest club due to all the transfers to the big five competitions), Brugge and Gent. I don't see why Bruge should give money to clubs that are badly managed and Genk (who gets the biggest part of the solidarity money) and Gent (second most) don't need that money. Although i'm a Genk fan, it hink this is not just. Brugge are punished because they are champions and because they are a well led club...football....weird, unjust and egoïstic.
 
@Stan That seems a ridiculous situation all round. So there would be a 6 team second division next season? Why on earth is it split 16/8 anyway between 1/2, that seems mad in the first place, why not 12/12 or at least 14/10? That must be very boring for fans of second division teams to play only 7 other teams all season and play them four times as well. Still, what do fans have to do with anything these days? :ROLL:
 
Don't know how many clubs there will be in 1B. The problem is that there is only one club that can get promotion. All those 1B clubs have foreign owners (since last week Lommel has the same owner as Man City for example) and they take huge gambles to promote...all those clubs are financially not sane. Belgium is too small for 24 professional football clubs. Lots of those clubs have scarcely any public...They get much less television money...so they all have huge deficits...

Relegation from 1A is a catastrophe. Two years ago Mechelen (the club i have a season ticket for) got relegated, it would be like Everton that gets relegated, a huge surprise. They had a bad start and lots injuries and got relegated in the last match. I remeber that the club who could also relegate was 2-0 down 10 minutes from the end while Mechelen was 2-0 up. That team (Eupen) scored 3 goals in 5 minutes. there were allegations of match fixing. Afterwards it was said that Mechelen themselves fixed their last match...
Anyway Mechel was in second division and did everything to hold onto most of their players. They got better contracts and the huge gamble payed off because they immediately went back to first division and won the Cup last year. But sonce then they are financially in dire straits. And this was a huge gamble who paid of more or less. But most relegated clubs don't return and then they are in even more trouble....
 
I knew the Belgian league system is a bit wacky but not quite that wacky! The 16-8 set up is bizarrely uneven.

Also interesting that you say 24 professional clubs is too many for Belgium. We've got less than half the population but still 23 professional clubs. And another 19 part-time clubs in a 42-team, four-league system. Only eight of those teams turned a profit last year, and Celtic have more money in the bank than the other 41 teams combined. The disparity in finances is making football impossible to govern at a national level, let alone a continental one.
 
Enjoying watching some footy.

Just wish the German games would add some atmosphere via speakers or whatever.

FD
 
On the Guardian's Football Weekly, i heard a very funny description of Aberdeen's first match: "These lads couldn't pass the Covid 19 virus if they wanted to." Apparently they can...
 
Stan said:
On the Guardian's Football Weekly, i heard a very funny description of Aberdeen's first match: "These lads couldn't pass the Covid 19 virus if they wanted to." Apparently they can...
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That's the thing. Even Coronavirus aside, they saw fit to go out after a PATHETIC performance against Rangers AND with training the next day! Since then they've issued a pitiful statement of apology.

Footballers have it sorted. In another walk of life they'd be sacked.
 
No idea what happened with the link. But yeah, the story is incredible.

I think the negligence of one player travelling to Spain is worse than eight players travelling a couple of miles. Not that it's a competition between the 'Aberdeen eight' and Bolingoli, but I'm just trying to comprehend the stupidity.

We'll find out the ramifications later today.
 
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