When our footballing world came to an abrupt stop in March Rotherham United were second in League One. At lot of us expected to be back up and running now, adding perhaps a months worth of postponed games to our calendar with hopes of next Sunday seeing us finish the season still in the top two and getting ready to start next season back in the Championship.
As we know the coronavirus has made that impossible.
There was a little hope this week with the Premier League announcing they might be getting back underway shortly, though probably playing games behind closed doors. It looked like that could be a guideline for the rest of the English Football Leagues.
Well, today it looks like we might have been jumping the gun a little with the Daily Mail reporting that any league below the Championship probably won’t get to finish the 2019/20 season off.
And it could be down to money (no surprise there then).
Before any football takes place COVIS-19 tests have to take place on anyone who will be involved and that is going to cost something in the region of £4 million. And it looks like the football hierarchy will pay for the Premier League and Championship clubs to have this done. But, it also looks like it will cost too much money to have the tests for clubs in the lower leagues as well.
So, if this happens how will this season end? There was always the chance that it would be written off and we’d start again, when able, with the 2020/1 season – well how can that happen now if two of the leagues are going to be playing this current season out? It could be that the season ends now and the top three go up and those in the relegation places go down but then there are still teams who have games in hand so that won’t seem a fair option to them. I’ve also seen where the top three teams go up and there are no relegations – how can that be in the top two leagues who are playing their games?
Seems to me it’s again ‘one rule for one, one for another’ which happens quite a bit in football.
Football is a simple game, they say, eleven players, two goals and a ball – until something like this happens and it then becomes a difficult game to sort out.
Stay Safe.
Up The Millers.
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Hi, Caz, hope you are all well. The people who thought we might be up and running by now simply didn’t understand the virus. I said September. Even so I won’t be attending any games until a cure or vaccine is found. That’s because governments, businesses, football authorities and clubs will balance risk against economic cost with the result that they will start up well before it’s “safe” on purely medical grounds. I’m personally not prepared to take that risk. I doubt if the “behind closed doors” idea will work. Coronavirus tests are only around 50% accurate which means you could have a false negative result for up to half those tested. Footballers exhale huge amounts of saliva droplets, they spit, they hug, they push, shove and tackle each other. Players will know some of their team or opponents could have the virus and still test negative. I don’t think all will be prepared to take the risk. We’ll see.
Hi Kevin – all well here, hope you are the same. All about money isn’t it, which, in my humble opinion, is the last thing we should be thinking about. I hadn’t realised that about the tests only being 50% accurate – quite worrying that. I’ve just seen Aguero saying that players are frightened to return to football and I, for one, can’t blame them for the reason’s you have posted above. Stay Safe.
hello again caz its good to hear from kevin again talkig a lot of sense as usual i like kevin do not fancy going to a game until a vaccine is found.I dont think a lot of players will want to play football with body fluids flying about all over the place keep healthy C.IN L
Hi carlton. Glad you’re well. Impossible to see how all this will pan out.