Where will it end... 12th September as it happens

Australia has been relatively unaffected by the pandemic(borders closed early and locked down so we "only" have 70 deaths) but Rugby League have notified that they will restart the competition at the end of May(BCD but location tba):
https://www.nrl.com/news/2020/04/22/nrl-definitely-restarting-on-may-28-clubs-to-resume-training-soon-pearce/


There are so many ways to finish the football season.. I have a feeling fib 1 and 2 clubs just want to use this situation to benefit themselves.

 

Re; Gary Neville. Top top bloke, hated him as a player. But he puts his money where his mouth is. Opened up his hotel to NHS staff and is carrying on paying his staff full pay. I also saw on Twitter that he’d given a few quid to Brighouse Town to help them through this crisis...He hasn’t forgotten his roots.

 

He is bang on but this is why I feel the clubs need to do more and to try to get football back instead of acting like defeatist thinking about themselves.

Furloughing players then will happily bin them off!

We need to hear positivity not negativity.

As for Chelsea sending 79m on a player. I don't believe they want counthino but I do believe the PL will move as far away from the EFL as possible. League 1 & 2 clubs in the mean are useless businesses and deadweight to football it seems now.

Neville knows that Salford are fine and could join an elite breakaway. Don't listen to him.. he's not stupid. He knows Div 1 and 2 are finished. Clubs like Salford, Sunderland and other clubs with money will break away. New leagues will be formed as clubs will fold if football doesn't come back soon. Any chairman wanting to end the season now is an idiot, a fool.

Neville knows once Salford ride out the storm and it comes back that they will be in say PL 2. Salford can afford to ride it out for 12-18 months.

If I was chairman of Bradford or any club I would not be demanding ending the season because ending it will mean the long term future will be a sorry one. They won't be football next season if we can't finish this.

Don't be fooled by Neville, he's a smart bloke.. he's seen the pound signs long term..

Neville gave it away that Div 1 & 2 clubs were talking about salary caps etc. He knows that PL will be talking about PL 2 etc and will base it on money. Never let him mug you off.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8248609/Coronavirus-Nicola-Sturgeon-publishes-post-lockdown-plan.html

Told you the over 70's should all go to Scotland. All have fun up there.Krankie isn't messing.

 

Good information on how the Bundesliga will be restarting.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/amp/football/52379825?__twitter_impression=true

 

Looking at football restart from a different angle:

The rough estimated death risk for men of footballing age from swab test results is around 0.2%.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/

Average annual flu deaths from hospital admissions in the ages 15-45 is around 800. A bad flu year is higher. 2006 looks to be about 3 times higher, so around 2400. Add in deaths outside hospital and it will have been a bit higher than 2,400. If flu had been notifiable on death certificates, like Covid-19, it could have been quite a lot higher than 2400. (e.g. some deaths put down as pneumonia would have recorded flu.)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0163445313003733

There are about 12m men aged 15-45 so death risk from Covid-19 as estimated from swab tests is 24,000 if all could get infected.(Unlikely but I'm comparing to flu fatality risk so bear with me.) At worst case, if we are picking up most Covid-19 cases so if 0.2% is right, the death risk to men of footballing age from Covid-19 to flu is therefore 24,000 to 2400 or more than 2400 - so less than 10 times the 2006 flu risk. However, swab test numbers are ignoring loads of asymptomatics in the general public because we are only testing mostly medical suspected cases and high risk groups. Swabbing looks likely to be missing at least half of infections, so the risk to 15-45 year-olds is very likely less than 5 times the 2006 flu. Small antibody blood tests and swab tests of local large outbreaks so far indicate we could be missing far more than half of asymptomatic cases in the general public. It's actually possible that the risk to 15-45 year-olds is not far above the 2006 flu wave. It's also likely that the ratios will be better for footballers as they will have lower compromising factors than average men of a similar age. I can't quantify this. So, depending on the rate of undiagnosed asymptomatic cases in the general public, it's maybe possible we could currently let footballers play, provided we keep them away from old people or immunosuppressed with higher personal risk.

We'll get a better handle on this when we do some generalised blood testing. The government is just starting general public swab testing with first results expected in early May and blood antibody tests to follow. But will results come in time? Perhaps, if swabbing shows case numbers have dropped to very low levels. Blood testing might eventually show a lower mortality than realised but seems less likely to come in time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52390970

As an aside, opening everything up more quickly reduces austerity funding pressure on the NHS later . We might want to risk some extra deaths to reopen early because the financial damage from extending lockdown could cause thousands of extra deaths later. This has not been discussed much yet. It does matter with regard to reopening football but it's really a whole discussion of its own.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8248637/Coronavirus-UK-Builders-line-construction-sites-Britain-gets-work.html

@Storck

Told you all Britain was easing its lockdown on the sly.

 

There's a financial arrogance at the top level of the game, certainly in this country. Look at the clubs who furloughed non playing staff, with negligible impacts for multi-millionaire players. Even Liverpool, a club supposedly in close touch with its community, furloughed staff until they saw the backlash.

Players at the top level have been riding a gravy train for years, fueled by the massive TV and commercial contracts it gets, screwing paying supporters over massively. Players at the level need to grasp reality - the bubble has burst. Maybe only for a year or two, but for that year or two they may need to accept 80-90% wage cuts. I'm not even kidding. Clubs need a reality check. And clubs is L 1/2 need proper, substantive financial support through this. Particularly clubs who're financially as viable as they can be, with little debt and responsible running costs. Football is supposed to be a family and it needs to look after its own, right down to the grass roots. Or we'll all suffer in the long run.

 

Why are the EFL and FA not bailing them out?

I don't blame PL or their clubs. No different to large companies not helping out small companies in the same industry.

Div 1 & 2 clubs like Bradford just haven't helped themselves over the year by being unambitious.

I talk about Salford will benefit massively from no football for 12/18 months.

 

Modifying businesses and schools so that at least some partial re-openings can be allowed. But all based on 2m social distancing. How do you play a football game and apply those rules? You can't. And if you don't apply it to football games, what else gets a waiver?

 

I just think have to make expectations to the rules based on testing like the government said yesterday.

You keep saying this but Australia are bringing back football and rugby.

Other countries also plan to start footy soon.

 

what happens if a player or member of staff gets it and that whole team has to go into quarantine for 14 days? Do they miss the chance to finish the season?

it’s a total mess. I’d cancel this season and look for a bailout package immediately. Playing behind closed doors only helps the premier league. No one else can afford to do it. All staff and players would no longer be on furlough and with next to no income how do the clubs survive?

I don’t think it will happen but saw a good suggestion of regionalising leagues one and two. Bring barrow up as champions and hopefully that way, less travelling for teams and fans and bigger gates? Who knows but not sure every team will survive this

 

What happens next season? What's your plans?

My mind is if you cant finish 10 games then you have no chance next season with 50/60 so stop with the excuses and find solutions.

Bail out? You said no cash flow now.. you do understand that your company will act the in the same way. Football quits and many industries will make their Furlough staff redundant for sure.

The bailout needs to happen now if anything hence why I say the EFL and FA need to step up now.

 

Its a slippery slope. If you allow football as an exception, what else? Because I'll say this - if I ran a small business and I saw football games resume, I'd be opening my business back up in full.

 

Great point. The only way I can see it happening in principle at a PL level - though the logistics would be a nightmare - is to run a football village type setup, where all teams and support staff are isolated for 7 days, then tested to make sure they're clean, then kept in a walled off village, quarantined from their families, playing games in rapid succession and with everyone remaining in quarantine until the games complete. Logistically a nightmare.

 

Businesses are opening mate as I have said and come June 1st many more self employed will open no matter what pal.

 

Time will tell. The government will no doubt issue instructions over the next few weeks outlining the approach for businesses re-opening. Any that go against those instructions may face consequences individually, and society may have to pay the price all over again if it leads to a second wave of infection. Like it or not, we can't just take it open ourselves to decide what's appropriate or it'll end in anarchy.

 

We're moving to Jeopardy......well that's where all the jobs are apparently..!!

 

True mate.

Ryanair have already told the government to fu@k off about not putting people in the middle seats.

I just think social distancing is nearly impossible after lock down and everything has to be about testing, testing and testing.

Think krankie is right we have to learn to live with the virus. However, we need to find solutions. Suggesting problems is easy but not help.

 

We are still in lockdown and will remain so for the next 5 to 6 weeks I’d say. That us to the end of May into early June. No training for players for weeks and months by then.

Into 3 months nearly with no income for clubs. How do they afford travel, supplies, full wages etc etc. The list goes on. They have lost nearly a quarter of income and at our level it has a big impact as most clubs run year to year hand to mouth. it’s wrong but that’s the way the house of cards is built which will one day come tumbling down. Maybe this is it?

it’s ok for the premier league. They have mammoth tv deals. We do not. Our league does not.
Return in September when it is safer to do so. We can see from other countries that they will reopen around 4 months of the peak. That means it’s safe then.
A bailout package comes along to get clubs through the summer. With possibly a percentage paid back to whoever each season from tv money. I don’t know think differently for it.
this is the biggest test facing the biggest set up of professional football probably in the world which this country has. Let’s not rush and get it wrong.