That isn't what Spain and Italy are doing. Their coming out of lockdown is takeaways are allowed to open (in Italy) and children are allowed out of the house (in Spain). Their lockdowns were stricter than ours to begin with, so reporting that says theirs are being loosened amount to getting close to where we are now.
Glenn Murray just saying that if players have to wear masks then it can’t be safe to play but if the hierarchy say they have to play then so be it. Utter madness to contemplate restarting the season
The lockdowns are being lifted, and football is part of that.Mate, do you understand this "R NUMBER" that they keep banging on about and how, due to isolating, it has been reduced to a value below 1?
Well, getting people to "isolate" in groups as big as a football team along with all the extra fitness/medical staff/management team doesn't really fit into a scheme that maintains that, does it? You're right though, they won't be all crammed into tube/train carriages, they'll probably all be getting ferried around in a big coach which is just as confined as a train carriage and just as risky to their health.
I just don't see it as being worth the risk to rush back a contact sport just yet. It's way too soon IMO and the health consequences for the players don't stack up considering what's at stake from a purely sporting sense (I'm not getting into the financial consequences of the clubs as that'll not really be of much consequence to the players I'd imagine) - NO relegation so pretty much just settling the top European entry places. Why would they possibly risk their lives for it?
I fully understand what you're saying about everyone having to get back to work at some stage in order to save their individual businesses, along with stimulating the country's economy, and that when we all do eventually get back to it certain "distancing regulations/advice" will have to be bent/ignored to a certain extent, but not as much as a contact sport requires them to be, surely? Plus footballers are role models to millions of kids. Monkey see, monkey do, and all that. It'll be hard enough to get kids to socially distance when they go back to school as it stands now, but if they see their heroes playing football then they'll be playing football too, and kids have such short attention spans that they'll be all over each other when one of them scores. It'll be mayhem.
I'm not going to make predictions as it might just all blow over and this "disaster" may not be the "world changer" that some say it will be, but I certainly think that from a health perspective football needs to wait for quite a lot longer than it has before it even THINKS about returning.
But I don't own a football club that could possibly face extinction as a result of waiting, do I, so my opinion real counts for shit :)
As some else has said if players have to wear mask in a game the ref will to. How is the ref going to blow his whistle ?
I’ll watch it just to moan like fcuk about it being on.The lockdowns are being lifted, and football is part of that.
The question of whether fans will have any interest in watching it on TV if there's no relegation is another one but I have no moral objection to football discussing returning when we're also discussing the return of schools, trains and work in general.
I wonder if Richard Scudamore would be able to tell us how we can play football and yet remain 2mtrs apart at all times .
There maybe an announcement on Wednesday as to whether the Bundesliga will return. Their players are already in training. Football Focus featured Rabbi Matondo at Schalke preparing for it.100%
The way it is being reported that Spain and Italy are coming out of lockdown is giving some people in the country that the U.K. won’t be for behind in lifting the restrictions we have - Spain and Italy’s lift gives them similar restrictions to what we have. They went harder, we have a semi-lockdown
The language and reporting and false comparisons are not helpful
The lockdowns are being lifted, and football is part of that.
The question of whether fans will have any interest in watching it on TV if there's no relegation is another one but I have no moral objection to football discussing returning when we're also discussing the return of schools, trains and work in general.
The thing I find hard to understand if it's ok for football to be played why isnt ok to visit my mates and sit in a pub
While I dom't agree with football coming back, the above comparison is not really relevant. Football players will be being tested consistently every 2-3 days and in strict locked quarantine before and after matches.
Do you want to be tested every 48 hours, or every time you leave the house?
Exactly. I know people over here who run amateur sports facilities – five-a-side pitches, tennis courts, swimming pools, basketball, volleyball, etc. They're on the verge of financial ruin and don't have billionaire benefactors to call on. There'll be many small sports businesses in the UK just like that who are also staring into financial oblivion.It is still ridiculous to expect the rest of the country to stay locked up and keeping safe distances to prevent escalation, but it is OK for footie to have different rules applied. I can see public outcry if rules are relaxed for what is not essential tasks
The thing I find hard to understand if it's ok for football to be played why isnt ok to visit my mates and sit in a pub
Exactly. I know people over here who run amateur sports facilities – five-a-side pitches, tennis courts, swimming pools, basketball, volleyball, etc. They're on the verge of financial ruin and don't have billionaire benefactors to call on. There'll be many small sports businesses in the UK just like that who are also staring into financial oblivion.
So why is the Premier League such a special case? They should be allowed to start playing sport again once it's deemed safe for everyone else to do so. Anything other than that makes a mockery of the situation and sticks two massive fingers up to the rest of the sports industry. It'd be the equivalent of saying Tesco is allowed to open, but your local greengrocers isn't.
I don't claim they are key workers, but I have no moral objection to talk of re-starting the Premier League on June 12th.You rate the backbone of our infrastructure as being on par with the entertainment business. Sorry Marv, I think you are so far from reality on this issue of priorities in trying to get the country back to running as best we can
While I dom't agree with football coming back, the above comparison is not really relevant. Football players will be being tested consistently every 2-3 days and in strict locked quarantine before and after matches.
Do you want to be tested every 48 hours, or every time you leave the house?
Football without relegation is madness but so is football without football clubs. There is a financial axe hanging over football that many of you are ignoring. Why would the Premier League even consider suspending relegation if not because there is a level of desperation?So the following will protect the integrity of the league;
Removing home advantage
Removing fans
Removing any reason for anyone under the top 10 to try
Removing VAR (supposedly)
The only issue with that is these things were all present for basically the entire season; and particularly with number 3 it changes the entire complex of the game and basically removes reason for teams to actually try.
Removing them/changing things at this stage nulls any future results as they are not the same competition.
As @Newman Noggs intelligently mentioned; what they should do to actually maintain the “integrity” that seems to be so important, is to null it all, and concentrate on starting next year on schedule and as smoothly as possible.
Instead they’re going to completely fuck up two season, cup games and European competitions just to finish this one.
They say city are the only club run with blood money. But if anyone suffers from this, every club in the league will be running on blood money
Fucking madness.