Project Restart has been designed with health and safety at its forefront and, in those regards, as the gaffer Harry outlines below, it is a solid plan to resume football and profit from its economic and social influence.
But from a purely footballing perspective; it is simply unfair. It undermines the integrity of competition to an extent that everything that follows is done under falsehood. The Premier League will become the Premier League*.
The great argument about not scrapping the season is the injustice against those clubs who are inches away from titles, promotion, Europe…etc. To declare the 2019-20 campaign null and void across England’s professional game would render everything those teams, players and managers have achieved as meaningless. And yes of course, this would be unfair too.
But all of the results to date become meaningless if the competition is continued under such differing variables. Resuming the Premier League at neutral venues, behind closed doors, would not be the Premier League at all. It would be a completely different competition. Norwich have played relegation rivals Brighton and West Ham away, but wouldn’t get the right of return at Carrow Road, where they have won 73% of their points this term.
From a Spurs perspective, we have five games left at home, where we have won 65% of our points this season. The five clubs directly above us and, the three directly below us, in the table have all played more home matches.
When a point or a goal can be the difference; this stuff really matters.
Of course every club has their own agenda but by pushing your own you risk changing the course of another’s history, perhaps irrepairably.
There is no fair way to complete the season unless we wait it out until the virus is benign enough to allow us to do so in the same way it was started. But there is too much money and passion involved for such patience.
If there was any confidence that the new season could begin in August or September with stadiums full of fans then I would be in favour of curtailing the current season. No winners, no losers; switch it off and start again.
Here, here.
We are not guaranteed a 2020/21 season so why void this one? Let’s get this finished, when it is safe to do so, then think about next season. I can perfectly see why the bottom teams want relegation cancelled but they are living in cloud cuckoo land. No point playing at all if there is no relegation. The games would be played like testimonials or pre season friendlies. Utter nonsense. The home advantage for teams in trouble can be counter productive where the fans act like a fun sponge and instil fear on its players. West Ham will probably benefit from playing behind closed doors. Their fans are so far from the pitch the players struggle to hear them anyway!
Very interesting article on the future of The EFL by the owner of Peterborough United in the Guardian. Some of the things he suggests could be adopted by Premier League clubs, eg 5 per cent agent fees on transfers to be paid by the player not the club, and loan players to be paid the wage of the host club and not the inflated salaries of the Premier League teams. A salary cap and the use of factorisation ( look it up) to save the financial side for clubs.
I agree with view entirely and I think more fans pundits and journos are also reaching the same view. Sadly there is no chance of crowds returning at the start of next season so we still have a similar issue in reverse then. At the moment it looks like no crowds until a vaccine is out. Hopefully this could be possible at the start of next year but more likely towards the middle of next year. It will also take time to get the vaccine out to everyone.