EdinburghBlue

So his CV won’t show him as manager when Rangers* won their first title 😀

Some clubs in the Conference North and South were saying they would have to play only amateurs and loanees if forced to continue playing as they had already released their players. Dover haven’t played for a few weeks and are refusing to borrow government cash to continue playing. May end up either being expelled or having all their results for this season expunged.

Yes. It’s well hidden in many countries.

Back to the allocation of teams to leagues as at the start of this season. Simply a pragmatic approach to allow competition for full-time teams.

From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-55246112 “It estimated that between 17 July and 30 August, there were 46 "import events" into Scotland - 28 from England, 13 from mainland Europe and four from Asia.” And from the FT:

Tiers1 to 5 in England haven’t gone away. Tier 6 clubs have already agreed to void the season.

Er, no. Many were arguing that we should have pursued an elimination strategy when we initially had the chance, as was done in Taiwan, New Zealand etc. This was within Scotland’s grasp, but we reimported Covid-19 from Spain and England in particular, which ignited a second wave. But I agree with you on contingency planning. I think a decent solution would have been to have a temporary structure for one season only with full-time teams that were committed to and could afford full testing regimes playing separately from the semi-professional ones. But irrespective of structure there should have been an agreement in advance on how many games would be required for a valid outcome, how that would be determined, and what to do if any leagues had to be declared void.

So Greece doesn’t have any referees of its own?

Very angry at the Bobby Madden story this morning. Why was travel to Greece to referee a domestic game deemed necessary travel? Why was the group not required to go into a quarantine hotel on return as others are? Yet again there appears to be a different approach for the ‘elite’ compared to our level of the professional game.

There should have been no second wave. Governments across Europe ignored scientific advice and relaxed restrictions - particularly on travel - too quickly. (Research shows that we had effectively eradicated Covid-19 in Scotland, but then reimported it from England and Spain.) But there were still opportunities later with circuit breakers, which should have been used more widely. Perhaps the problem was that clubs and governing bodies put too much faith in governments.

Perhaps not surprising given the level of distrust after last season’s farce.

Good signs that the pyramid is starting to work. It will be interesting to see where we are in 10 or 20 years.

With 10 weeks of the season left IF we are able to resume at the beginning of March and clubs having between 17 and 19 games left (excluding Scottish Cup ties) it’s obvious that we’re not going to have a 27 game season. Even 18 is looking challenging. Looks as if it’s now just a matter of time before the season is voided.

We desperately need football back

Almost everywhere in Europe clubs suffer strict liability for the behaviour of their fans. Some politicians wanted to introduce this in Scotland, although it was argued to be unworkable in the case of two particular clubs. But if we have strict liability for the behaviour of fans, then why not for players? After all employers are now held to be responsible for the behaviour of their employees outside of work in some circumstances e.g. social events. If an employer can be liable for comments made at a Christmas party then the case is even stronger when employees collectively behave in a way that could endanger lives. So let’s make Rangers* responsible for the behaviour of their players. But this probably won’t happen because we have an election coming up.