God. Their fury. Can you imagine Graeme Souness, Michael Owen and all the other Liverpool twits on TV if this happened. It would be described as a bigger injustice than any government failure in dealing with coronavirus

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Thing is I did one of those predictor thingys cos I’ve got a bit of time on my hands and I had City pipping them on goal difference

Yeah I did one of those too and City ended up league winners in mine as well. We'll never know for sure what would have happened. There's just no way to tell.

I can't imagine being impartial and still conceiving Liverpool will never win two more matches.

Just as we'd never hear the end of Pool winning the league, we'd never hear the end of how they were robbed too. Teams should either continue the league in some form (behind closed doors sounds appropriate) or just vote to give Pool the league (which would be brilliant IMO).

banduan wrote:

I can't imagine being impartial and still conceiving Liverpool will never win two more matches.

We will never know. So sad.

Was thinking about what the mayor of Liverpool said on the likelihood of Liverpool fans trying to congregate in spite of lockdown if remaining games were played behind closed doors. If the season was finished in this way but everyone was stuck indoors and unable to share the experience outside of the forum or other video mediums, would it really be enough of a positive distraction as they make out. Obviously there are other considerations on why or why not to finish the season, but wonder if it will overall be of a benefit to fans. I would follow it, but not really care. Imagine that supporters of those clubs at the bottom might even be adversely affected.

Apparently Premier League may be back in June.

Good.

La Liga also aiming for football to return on 12 June

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

Apparently Premier League may be back in June.

Have the bottom six relaxed their position on relegation?

Guess they'll actually have to prove that they belong in the PL now. Incredible how quickly things changed by the way, not long ago some on here thought this and next season might be cancelled.

I think the important thing is to divorce yourself from fandom and view football as another industry, where there are workers who need to earn their living and businesses that need to survive. The rest of the world is grappling with these questions and figuring out how to make it work. I guess what football is doing is somewhat equivalent to the restaurant industry (re)opening for take-outs only until it is safe enough to allow a few customers on-premise.

Every industry faces risks. In Botswana today, which has managed to limit to 22 cases from 10,000 tests, the government is freaking out because a South African cross-border truck driver tested positive when delivering goods to supermarkets from South Africa. They've picked up attendance registers and employee lists at the supermarkets he visited and checked him into a corona hospital. It seems milataristic and over-the-top but I think they'll need the same approach with the football leagues if they are to just get this football season completed.

Yeah, those views were always detached from reality. They were always going to try and finish the season.

I do wonder how it will pan out in practice though. From entire squads potentially having to go into quarantine to the rate of infection going back up in the country, there's a lot of hurdles to actually getting it done. I wonder if players will have to continue training separately, or at least in smaller clustered groups?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52579299

What a shitty article. It says that they have to repay to broadcasters because the matches are played at different times and without fans at the stadium, but it doesn't mention a word about what that matters. Won't every game be televised now? If anything, more people will watch games on television.

Games will be played at weird times, in empty neutral venues and there’s also talk of making some games free to air. There’s a very good case to say it will adversely effect broadcasters. Ultimately it’s about broadcasters trying to recoup some of the big money they’ve put in and I’m guessing from a legal standpoint they have a pretty good case.

If your organisation has purchased broadcast rights it's not like you want the league or its clubs to collapse unless you've been led into an absolute crisis, so they will find a financial settlement one way or another.

The neutral venue behind closed doors scenario sounds hollow.

I don't think I'll be at the level of boredom required to be interested in watching any of it.

They don't really care about the games any more, they just want their contractual obligation to be over and done with. If they could get away with playing the entire season on Hackney Marshes, they would.

I might watch them if they were played in Hackney Marshes.

I mean if they don't need to accommodate a crowd they could get creative about where they play, somewhere more interesting than an empty echoing stadium 

Burnwinter wrote:

If your organisation has purchased broadcast rights it's not like you want the league or its clubs to collapse unless you've been led into an absolute crisis, so they will find a financial settlement one way or another.

The TV companies that own Premier league rights will have clauses that allow them to claw back their TV monies in the event of an an Act of God - and Covid-19 should so qualify. They would be eager to recoup these as advertising dollars have evaporated. 

Even if the Premier League manages to run all the games in the next 2 months, it is highly unlikely that the TV stations will get anywhere near the originally anticipated advertising $. Lots of media companies are currently firing, furloughing or closing down. 

 Yeah

Not enough flair players now to pull that off. It's a mechanised sport.

Claudius wrote:

Burnwinter wrote:

If your organisation has purchased broadcast rights it's not like you want the league or its clubs to collapse unless you've been led into an absolute crisis, so they will find a financial settlement one way or another.

The TV companies that own Premier league rights will have clauses that allow them to claw back their TV monies in the event of an an Act of God - and Covid-19 should so qualify. They would be eager to recoup these as advertising dollars have evaporated. 

Even if the Premier League manages to run all the games in the next 2 months, it is highly unlikely that the TV stations will get anywhere near the originally anticipated advertising $. Lots of media companies are currently firing, furloughing or closing down. 

Absolutely. And behind the decline of advertising-funded businesses online is a 50% decline in digital ad revenue globally, which will actually hit even Facebook and Google pretty hard.

BuzzFeed announced it's shuttering its Australian and UK outlets today apparently. Only about 20 people involved, mind you—a "media outlet" in 2020 is pretty much a gaggle of modestly remunerated bloggers.

I wonder if insurance payouts wouldn't / shouldn't play a big part in the outcome of the TV rights wrangling? Certainly should in future based on what's happening now.

I doubt the Premier League and TV stations have explicitly insured against Covid-19. It sounds like Wimbledon being just a 2 week tournament insured against events that might lead to the complete cancellation, so they’re fine. Insurance companies will be very discerning about what’s covered, hence the government’s refusal to cancel the league.

Media companies are feeling it. I’ve actually finally started taking some subs once I saw companies laying off workers. The problem is if they collapse they won’t even be taken over by the big American tech zaibatsu that are sucking up the entire economy because they won’t want to be publishers per Section 230. So you could see good media outlets die off and be left with a high proportion of outlets that are funded by interest groups feeding us (mis)information. Maybe that’s an exaggerated outcome, but it worries me.

Claudius wrote:

I doubt the Premier League and TV stations have explicitly insured against Covid-19. It sounds like Wimbledon being just a 2 week tournament insured against events that might lead to the complete cancellation, so they’re fine. Insurance companies will be very discerning about what’s covered, hence the government’s refusal to cancel the league.

My wife works in travel insurance and they are paying out on basically everything because they never put in clauses to exempt themselves from pandemics, etc And thats across the industry. I think its going to be very rare that any event, company, etc has stipulations for a situation like this.

It's slightly different in that cover for cancellation is very common and pretty much a norm in the travel industry. PL clubs on the other hand are unlikely to have planned and insured against prolonged suspension, period for games behind closed doors or cancellation etc.

TV stations wouldn't necessarily need insurance against pandemics. It's simply a matter of a contract not being fulfilled and recouping the costs accordingly.

Sorry, Goon. You’re right. The problem here would be

• the premier league is unlikely to have insured against a pandemic
• the TV station, however, as you say, can claim back monies for an unfulfilled contract
• to further complicate matters, even in the event of rescheduled games, companies have now entered the May renegotiation period when they can change advertising commitments on TV and other media. Due to pandemic, they will pull back spend

It’s a shit show of a situation. Basically, no matter what happens, TV stations will not recoup the Premier League investment they made this year. Suing for money back might appear favorable for this season given the ad situation unless terms can be renegotiated. Which will impact how teams think about player salaries for the next 2-3 years.

Callum Hudson Odoi arrested for alleged rape

arsedoc md wrote:

Callum Hudson Odoi arrested for alleged rape

Talksport apparently thought that the lockdown breach was more important was more significant than the suspected rape:

Fucking trash.

Talks Port are obviously garbage but I think it was initially claimed police showed up because of breaking lockdown and drug related charges.

I took that screenshot myself from their website today though, a full day after it happened.

You can clearly hear the players and coaches when watching behind closed door footy.

What will Sky do about random C bombs being aired at lunch time?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52721397

Troy Deeney has come out and said he won't return as he fears for the safety of his 5 month child who has breathing difficulties.

I completely understand his stance as his concerns are completely legitimate. It does however put Watford in an awkward situation because they'll have to keep paying him his full salary but could essentially be without their best striker for 25% of the season while they sit above the relegation zone on goal difference. Would Watford be in the right to ask him to isolate from his family for a few months if the season restarts or not pay him his full salary?

This season being restarted is only due to commercial reasons, which I get because the knock on finances might put some clubs out of business. However it is putting players and clubs in a very difficult situation.

In a wider context, as society continues to open up, it'll be harder for players to say that they won't return. If thousands of people - even in cushy office jobs - are slowly getting back to work, the media will change their narrative.

I'd side with Deeney here but I'd wonder what his rights are. Players are not regularly employees, they've got tight contracts and while that worked out in their favour while the league was stopped it'll probably work against them now.

What happened at Watford over the break, did they take pay cuts? If this was an Arsenal player who agreed to the cut I'd hope they'd still be paid. If it was a player who said "my contract is my contract and I wont change" I'd say back to work or you're in breach of contract.

If Watford get relegated, those fans will never forgive Mr Cojones. His circumstances sound unique though. I think the club and independent doctors need to prove to him that nits safe. Maybe it takes a few weeks of practice in England and some evidence from Germany to prove to him that he is or isn’t in harms way.

It’s good he raises it. He’s a high profile guy facing similar worries to a lot of factory workers around the world who don’t have his platform. We have to get working at some point, but how do we take care of those workers in face-to face jobs who are particularly vulnerable or have vulnerable family?

Claudius wrote:

We have to get working at some point, but how do we take care of those workers in face-to face jobs who are particularly vulnerable or have vulnerable family?

Definitely. Deeney has the luxury of being able to make this decision. A lot people can't afford to tell their bosses "no". We need protections for ordinary workers who don't want to return to work for health reasons, not just their own but their families.

There was a metro worker in London who had respiratory issues. She asked to be taken away from the ticket booth and her bosses refused. Someone spat on her, she contracted coronavirus and passed away shortly thereafter.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-52616071

But also why are we spitting on each other? On the surface we may be frustrated, but is it because she's a woman, she's black or she's seen as less than by being a ticketing officer?