What happens if they ban large gatherings due to COVID-19?

[sirscottyoung]

Fairest way to settle the leagues are go back to half way point when everyone had played each other once at home and once away and use this as the final table.

Promote the top two and relegate the bottom two instead of play offs etc.

Split all the money that each club gets in the league evenly so that all clubs from 1st to 10th get the same amount.

Handily I have attached the table at half way point.

Yes I know some will be aggrieved but every situation will be that way.

[Wardy]

28 minutes ago, sirscottyoung said:

Fairest way to settle the leagues are go back to half way point when everyone had played each other once at home and once away and use this as the final table.

Promote the top two and relegate the bottom two instead of play offs etc.

Split all the money that each club gets in the league evenly so that all clubs from 1st to 10th get the same amount.

Handily I have attached the table at half way point.

Yes I know some will be aggrieved but every situation will be that way.

That’s even worse. not for the Rovers mind you. As you were. 

[Scottydog]

Six of the ten clubs are in exactly the same position now as they were then. 

[The Moonster]

A wee rumour surfacing (courtesy of a current League 1 player and Premiership coach) that the outline plan is for this season to restart in September. That's all I've heard, so no idea how it works with squads/contracts. If you're starting in September, that would allow enough time to get the remaining 8 fixtures done and the play-offs complete before Christmas. Would mean a bit of a wait for the following season though unless you started it in January/February, but that would probably mean a permanent change to our football calendar going forward.

[AsimButtHitsASix]

36 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

. Would mean a bit of a wait for the following season though unless you started it in January/February, but that would probably mean a permanent change to our football calendar going forward.

Or it could mean playing each other twice in the 20/21 season as opposed to four times?

[haufdaft]

Or it could mean playing each other twice in the 20/21 season as opposed to four times?

...or the start of summer football!

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

With the extreme likelihood of Euros going to 2021 there would be no room for manoeuvre at the end of next season. That option above could work if for example League cup was left out for a year, or play each other three times instead of four (somebody will moan). However every suggestion of extending into next season has the same issue - players contracts. 

Personally I look at this and think , whatever solution decided upon,   do we 

1. Disrupt two seasons by taking this one forward into the autumn OR

2. Disrupt one season by making this one void and starting afresh in August?

 

I assume most will fall into line with UEFA preferences to suit their cup competitions and money flows

Edited March 17, 2020 by SouthLanarkshireWhite
change

[The Moonster]

34 minutes ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

Or it could mean playing each other twice in the 20/21 season as opposed to four times?

I hadn't thought of that - could be a decent compromise!

[The Moonster]

Lets say we're planning for restarting this season in September, finishing for end of November. Majority of player contracts are up in June for the lower leagues, could we not just get the clubs together and come to a "gentlemens agreement" that players return to their clubs to complete these remaining fixtures, then use December and perhaps some of January as the "Summer Transfer window" to allow players to move on before starting the shortened season in February, which would end possibly in June?

[pub car king]

It's just a waiting game now, its foo early fo rush into a decision and it gives the powers that be time to make a decision. 

Realistically there are 2 solutions.

1. Void the season.

2. Finish the season on the current tables and award prizes/promotions accordingly.

Neither is particularly fair on anyone but it's a one off freak occurrence and if we start getting into postponing things for 6 months and shortening this or putting that back it will never catch up and just become more of a minefield. 

[renton]

1 hour ago, The Moonster said:

A wee rumour surfacing (courtesy of a current League 1 player and Premiership coach) that the outline plan is for this season to restart in September. That's all I've heard, so no idea how it works with squads/contracts. If you're starting in September, that would allow enough time to get the remaining 8 fixtures done and the play-offs complete before Christmas. Would mean a bit of a wait for the following season though unless you started it in January/February, but that would probably mean a permanent change to our football calendar going forward.

My god, we'd have Lewis Vaughan available for the run in 

[R.R.FC]

The problem with a shortened season out of the back of this is surely the further loss of income being a massive issue?

If this season was null and void or positions stayed as they are and we were able to start the new season in September and play a regular, full length season. Each team would lose 4 home games from this season. A massive loss but with fans support they may get through. If we completed this season in September you are asking teams to get through with no income till that point, then have another gap with no income till the next season starts in January/February (aside from reduced season ticket money) then if we only play each team twice as proposed, clubs will lose 9 home games in terms of income which is needed more than ever. Sounds absolute madness to me.

I get that with a temporary transfer window of some sort teams could re budget for the shorter season to an extent but teams already have players signed up which suddenly will take up a much larger percentage of the remaining reduced budget to fill the rest of the squad.

If we can’t play till September (which looks to be a best case scenario IMO) the only options are to null and void the season or go ahead with the positions as they are (my preference for obvious biased reasons) I don’t see anyway finishing the season is workable tbh. It’s not fair in anyway to not finish this season and there will be meltdowns all over the place no matter what they decide but I don’t think we have any other choice.

 

Edited March 17, 2020 by R.R.FC

[The Moonster]

5 minutes ago, R.R.FC said:

The problem with a shortened season out of the back of this is surely the further loss of income being a massive issue?

If this season was null and void or positions stayed as they are and we were able to start the new season in September and play a regular, full length season. Each team would lose 4 home games from this season. A massive loss but with fans support they may get through. If we completed this season in September you are asking teams to get through with no income till that point, then have another gap with no income till the next season starts in January/February (aside from reduced season ticket money) then if we only play each team twice as proposed, clubs will lose 9 home games in terms of income which is needed more than ever. Sounds absolute madness to me.

I get that with a temporary transfer window of some sort teams could re budget for the shorter season to an extent but teams already have players signed up which suddenly will take up a much larger percentage of the remaining reduced budget to fill the rest of the squad.

If we can’t play till September (which looks to be a best case scenario IMO) the only options are to null and void the season or go ahead with the positions as they are (my preference for obvious biased reasons) I don’t see anyway finishing the season is workable tbh. It’s not fair in anyway to not finish this season and there will be meltdowns all over the place no matter what they decide but I don’t think we have any other choice.

 

Every single team is working with that "reduced income" though, so it's not like some have an advantage over others. And in my scenario players would be out of contract from June to end of August (almost as they usually are) so it's not really a case of clubs still having to pay their entire squads until we get back to playing football. The "gentlemens agreement" part and getting players to agree to go back to clubs in September to finish this season seems the most difficult part of that suggestion to me.

[R.R.FC]

5 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

Every single team is working with that "reduced income" though, so it's not like some have an advantage over others. And in my scenario players would be out of contract from June to end of August (almost as they usually are) so it's not really a case of clubs still having to pay their entire squads until we get back to playing football. The "gentlemens agreement" part and getting players to agree to go back to clubs in September to finish this season seems the most difficult part of that suggestion to me.

Agree it would be a level playing field but I still don’t think it will be workable. By moving to half a season, you are asking teams to work with 50% less income next season. We already have 9 players signed up for next season based on having our expected 18 home games. I have no idea how much of our budget has been used up to sign those players but let’s say it’s 35% of our budget based on 18 games at League One level. All of a sudden we need to put together the remainder of the squad (around 9-11 players) on the remaining 15% of our budget because it has halved. It punishes teams who have planned ahead and started to sign players up, it would work if nobody had anyone contracted for next season and we were all signing players on reduced terms.

Also, not sure if the PFA would be involved in these talks, I assume they could be since they were involved down south in the decision not to play games behind closed doors from a player welfare point of view. If they are, I can’t see them accepting potentially players being out of contact from June till the end of August (almost 2 months more than they are currently) plus the ‘gentleman agreement’ issues plus the fact they would then be signing on much smaller contracts (if they didn’t want to move there family from Scotland) as all teams would be playing less games and have reduced budgets as a result, even if only for a season.

As said, there are flaws to every plan and nothing is going to be fair or please everyone but I just don’t see a shortening of the season being a viable option. I could well be proved wrong though, just my opinion.

[The Moonster]

2 minutes ago, R.R.FC said:

Agree it would be a level playing field but I still don’t think it will be workable. By moving to half a season, you are asking teams to work with 50% less income next season. We already have 9 players signed up for next season based on having our expected 18 home games. I have no idea how much of our budget has been used up to sign those players but let’s say it’s 35% of our budget based on 18 games at League One level. All of a sudden we need to put together the remainder of the squad (around 9-11 players) on the remaining 15% of our budget because it has halved. It punishes teams who have planned ahead and started to sign players up, it would work if nobody had anyone contracted for next season and we were all signing players on reduced terms.

Also, not sure if the PFA would be involved in these talks, I assume they could be since they were involved down south in the decision not to play games behind closed doors from a player welfare point of view. If they are, I can’t see them accepting potentially players being out of contact from June till the end of August (almost 2 months more than they are currently) plus the ‘gentleman agreement’ issues plus the fact they would then be signing on much smaller contracts (if they didn’t want to move there family from Scotland) as all teams would be playing less games and have reduced budgets as a result, even if only for a season.

As said, there are flaws to every plan and nothing is going to be fair or please everyone but I just don’t see a shortening of the season being a viable option. I could well be proved wrong though, just my opinion.

Working with 50% less income, but they're playing 50% less games. There's no doubt clubs would need to be inventive and original in their fundraising/ticket selling ideas, but I to me this is the only solution I can see which concludes all the games from this season and allows us to continue in our traditional sense in the quickest time. The other solution is restarting this season in say November/December and letting it run to March, then taking a break before the Euros and restarting again in July/August. You have a lot of bare months there though with clubs doing f**k all.

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

1 hour ago, The Moonster said:

Lets say we're planning for restarting this season in September, finishing for end of November. Majority of player contracts are up in June for the lower leagues, could we not just get the clubs together and come to a "gentlemens agreement" that players return to their clubs to complete these remaining fixtures, then use December and perhaps some of January as the "Summer Transfer window" to allow players to move on before starting the shortened season in February, which would end possibly in June?

You are assuming that players do not move between leagues or countries? This will need to be an over-arching solution for all leagues and all countries to avoid some 'playing by the agreement' and some not. What if you have already signed a pre-contract on better wages? What if your dream move is imminent? What about TV contracts for competitions - distort them and you run the risk of voiding contracts. 

 

The more I consider this, the more I favour a clean break for 2019/20 - void it.

 

And f*** Liverpool and Celtic in particular 

[The Moonster]

1 minute ago, SouthLanarkshireWhite said:

You are assuming that players do not move between leagues or countries? This will need to be an over-arching solution for all leagues and all countries to avoid some 'playing by the agreement' and some not. What if you have already signed a pre-contract on better wages? What if your dream move is imminent? What about TV contracts for competitions - distort them and you run the risk of voiding contracts. 

 

The more I consider this, the more I favour a clean break for 2019/20 - void it.

 

And f*** Liverpool and Celtic in particular 

Clubs might lose one or two players for those reasons, Bowie going to Fulham for example, but on the whole I reckon you could keep 90% (if not more) of the squads the same. Appreciate it could get messy with players going/coming from overseas and it would be impossible to force the agreement across global FA's.

I tend to agree that if playing out the games is completely unworkable then voiding the season is the only option. We can't be awarding promotions when it's mathematically possible for 4 clubs to win a league. Klopp doesn't even want the title awarded and his team are probably the most likely of all to win their league. It's a bit of a riddy the number of Raith fans on here saying the only "fair" way to do it is to promote them.

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

1 minute ago, The Moonster said:

Clubs might lose one or two players for those reasons, Bowie going to Fulham for example, but on the whole I reckon you could keep 90% (if not more) of the squads the same. Appreciate it could get messy with players going/coming from overseas and it would be impossible to force the agreement across global FA's.

I tend to agree that if playing out the games is completely unworkable then voiding the season is the only option. We can't be awarding promotions when it's mathematically possible for 4 clubs to win a league. Klopp doesn't even want the title awarded and his team are probably the most likely of all to win their league. It's a bit of a riddy the number of Raith fans on here saying the only "fair" way to do it is to promote them.

One other thing I've just thought of. Managers will already have decided who they do not want back next year. Imagine having to extend their contracts to get 8 games completed. Players would likely ask for at least 12 months and would have upper hand due to short time-scales. Not a good situation at all.

[CALDERON]

2 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

Clubs might lose one or two players for those reasons, Bowie going to Fulham for example, but on the whole I reckon you could keep 90% (if not more) of the squads the same. Appreciate it could get messy with players going/coming from overseas and it would be impossible to force the agreement across global FA's.

I tend to agree that if playing out the games is completely unworkable then voiding the season is the only option. We can't be awarding promotions when it's mathematically possible for 4 clubs to win a league. Klopp doesn't even want the title awarded and his team are probably the most likely of all to win their league. It's a bit of a riddy the number of Raith fans on here saying the only "fair" way to do it is to promote them.

I think most Rovers fans think the only properly fair thing to do is play the season fully. I'd rather lose it that way than win it by default. 

However it's surely fairer to award a league title based on 75 percent of it being completed than disregard all those games entirely?

[The Moonster]

2 minutes ago, SouthLanarkshireWhite said:

One other thing I've just thought of. Managers will already have decided who they do not want back next year. Imagine having to extend their contracts to get 8 games completed. Players would likely ask for at least 12 months and would have upper hand due to short time-scales. Not a good situation at all.

It would take compromise from everyone, of that there is no doubt.