Is this weekend the last match we get to go to this season?

[pozbaird]

1 minute ago, Snifter Pee Rot said:

 

It was in your hands, but If the season is over you'll  just need to take your medicine for being tam kite and ply your trade in the Championship with United coming up. Just how it's going to have to be. 

It would be easy for me to be smug about St Mirren sitting ninth, and suffering a long injury list, being safe and sound if the season is now ended. A wee twist of fate last midweek, and St Mirren could easily have went bottom. I’m not going to be smug and point at Hearts. I really hope they come up with a plan to play out the unfulfilled league games. We were about to go away to Killie with our injury woes, then played the Sevco. Anything could have happened, things undoubtably would have changed. I don’t want to see Hearts (or anyone) be relegated in this manner.

[A96]

1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:

This is an absolutely fucking shite plan. Two groups of 7 and having one team sitting out every week is just horrendous.

Hardly horrendous. We already quite regularly  have at least two clubs missing out on one round of fixtures whilst other teams are playing (eg postponement due to weather, or the prospective opponents being involved in League Cup semis or the final). And it wasn’t so long ago that clubs were allowed to postpone just about any single League fixture of their own choosing, so it’s unlikely the clubs would regard this proposal as horrendous

Add in the fact that the messing about with dates and kick off times for league fixtures is already accepted by the clubs.

 

 

[Guest JTS98]

34 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Youd have Cowdenbeath getting fans from Hearts, Dundee etc., while Queens Park are stuck with Highland League sides, despite 5th placed Queens being just 3pts off 3rd. - Football isn't fair. We accept this with cup draws all the time.

Theres no fair way of ending the season now. Theyd be making some major decisions for clubs in the lower tiers based on guesswork, which just isn't right. Of course it's not right, but the situation is entirely unprecedented.

 

Footballing season here could start on August 1st with the Betfred knockouts taking place with all those in the Groups. Could maybe push that forward even further dependent on midweek dates/International dates. - What makes you think August will be ok? Peak of infections in June. It takes on average 17-20 days to recover. June will not be the end, but the peak. By August 1st we can expect to still have a huge number of cases of covid. If someone at Hearts' training ground gets it, Hearts aren't playing. Etc etc. August is extremely optimistic.

That's roughly 20 weeks to finish the current season. Really you just need to force them to play Sat-Wed-Sat and you can batter through the league fixtures in 4 weeks. Cup Semi pushed that to 5, then you have a Cup Final and single leg Play Off taking it to 6. Scotland games and Euros pushed to next year.

So 6 weeks left of the season to play in 20 weeks. Ideally you give players 2/3, maybe even 4, weeks to recover. So to me we could 10-11 weeks without a game and still complete the season, and have a full 20/21, without all the fucking about unfairly punishing sides. - I don't think any of this applies, since there's no way we'll be playing in August.

 

[DC92]

33 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Youd have Cowdenbeath getting fans from Hearts, Dundee etc., while Queens Park are stuck with Highland League sides, despite 5th placed Queens being just 3pts off 3rd.

Theres no fair way of ending the season now. Theyd be making some major decisions for clubs in the lower tiers based on guesswork, which just isn't right.

One way or another they have to finish the season and then work out what theyll do next season. Scrapping the Betfred Groups and just going straight into knockout stages could cut 3 game weeks off the start of next season.

Footballing season here could start on August 1st with the Betfred knockouts taking place with all those in the Groups. Could maybe push that forward even further dependent on midweek dates/International dates.

That's roughly 20 weeks to finish the current season. Really you just need to force them to play Sat-Wed-Sat and you can batter through the league fixtures in 4 weeks. Cup Semi pushed that to 5, then you have a Cup Final and single leg Play Off taking it to 6. Scotland games and Euros pushed to next year.

So 6 weeks left of the season to play in 20 weeks. Ideally you give players 2/3, maybe even 4, weeks to recover. So to me we could 10-11 weeks without a game and still complete the season, and have a full 20/21, without all the fucking about unfairly punishing sides.

Never mind the player recovery time, a 2-4 week turnaround between seasons is never going to happen because it gives teams no time to prepare for playing in a new division. Relegation clauses in contracts might mean they have to assemble an entire team in that time. Promoted teams also won't have time to adjust (see Dundee 2012/13) and will end up playing with a team of lower division players.

Unless the season can restart in the next few weeks, which seems extremely unlikely, there aren't any "fair" options.

[Savage Henry]

Never mind the player recovery time, a 2-4 week turnaround between seasons is never going to happen because it gives teams no time to prepare for playing in a new division. Relegation clauses in contracts might mean they have to assemble an entire team in that time. Promoted teams also won't have time to adjust (see Dundee 2012/13) and will end up playing with a team of lower division players.
Unless the season can restart in the next few weeks, which seems extremely unlikely, there aren't any "fair" options.

And there is never going to be any universally popular option either. That’s why I think they go with the “least controversial” option of a null and void season with no promotion or relegation.

[RandomGuy.]

1 minute ago, A96 said:

Hardly horrendous. We already quite regularly  have at least two clubs missing out on one round of fixtures whilst other teams are playing (eg postponement due to weather, or the prospective opponents being involved in League Cup semis or the final). And it wasn’t so long ago that clubs were allowed to postpone just about any single League fixture of their own choosing, so it’s unlikely the clubs would regard this proposal as horrendous

Add in the fact that the messing about with dates and kick off times for league fixtures is already accepted by the clubs.

 

 

Would it not make the season even longer anyway? 

[RandomGuy.]

21 minutes ago, DC92 said:

Never mind the player recovery time, a 2-4 week turnaround between seasons is never going to happen because it gives teams no time to prepare for playing in a new division. Relegation clauses in contracts might mean they have to assemble an entire team in that time. Promoted teams also won't have time to adjust (see Dundee 2012/13) and will end up playing with a team of lower division players.

Unless the season can restart in the next few weeks, which seems extremely unlikely, there aren't any "fair" options.

Teams will be preparing for next season already, so it wont change a huge amount. Theyd still have the full transfer window left aswell.

Biggest issue would be the players contracts, it could be chaos.

[Hendo]

35 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

 

 

And there is never going to be any universally popular option either. That’s why I think they go with the “least controversial” option of a null and void season with no promotion or relegation.

 

 

That is most certainly not the least controversial option, as it would deny teams like United and Cove an almost certain promotion. The least controversial is to cancel relegation, promote two teams from non league football and expand the premier League by two. Expansion of the top division is also being considered in England, with more relegation next season to return to the status quo.

Edited March 15, 2020 by Hendo

[bennett]

 

 

Hearts will mount a tenacious fight against any decision to relegate them from the Ladbrokes Premiership following the Coronavirus outbreak.

The Evening News has learned that the club are willing to take legal action in the event of a premature demotion with eight games of the league campaign remaining.

The Scottish Football Association and Scottish Professional Football League suspended all games in Scotland on Friday due to the pandemic, but have yet to decide whether the season can be completed

[Nightmare]

2 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

This is an absolutely fucking shite plan. Two groups of 7 and having one team sitting out every week is just horrendous.

It doesn’t have to be two groups of 7. Denmark, Romania and Bulgaria all run leagues of 14 with varying forms of a 6/8 split.

Following the Romanian model, everyone plays each other twice (26 games), and at the split the top 6 and bottom 8 all play each other home & away again, taking the fixtures to 36 and 40 for the respective halves of the table. It’s not ideal in that matchday incomes will differ as a result, but considering the top six will have the bigger teams/crowds I don’t think the uneven number of fixtures is the biggest deal.

I actually think this model has a lot of merits. You can award titles, nobody goes down, the top 6 would still get the OF four times, and the bottom 8 get a couple of extra fixtures to offset the loss of only playing the bigger teams twice instead of three times.

[Ira Gaines]

There IS no "least controversial" option here, outside of finishing the season. In the event of the season ending, there's all sorts of problems either way.

[Dons_1988]

On the presumption that broadcasting money etc is all paid, I’d like to think they’d ditch the split of the pot being based on league placings and just become a fund to help clubs through this.

[PauloPerth]

2 hours ago, PauloPerth said:

No relegation from Premiership and the top 4 clubs from the championship come up for a 16 team Premiership.  Play each other twice then an 8/8 split for a 37 match season. 

The championship merges with league one and the top four of league two for a 20 team second tier, play each other twice for a 38 match season.

The third league is the remaining 6 clubs plus the current top two from the Highland and Lowland leagues.  Play each other four times as now.

Its quite old school for a season, but everyone starts the season knowing league reconstruction at the end of it to get the leagues back to where they are now.  So a lot to play for, even in mid-table across the leagues. Four relegated out of a bottom 8 in the Premiership would be quite interesting..

 

1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:

Youd have Cowdenbeath getting fans from Hearts, Dundee etc., while Queens Park are stuck with Highland League sides, despite 5th placed Queens being just 3pts off 3rd.

Theres no fair way of ending the season now. Theyd be making some major decisions for clubs in the lower tiers based on guesswork, which just isn't right.

One way or another they have to finish the season and then work out what theyll do next season. Scrapping the Betfred Groups and just going straight into knockout stages could cut 3 game weeks off the start of next season.

Footballing season here could start on August 1st with the Betfred knockouts taking place with all those in the Groups. Could maybe push that forward even further dependent on midweek dates/International dates.

That's roughly 20 weeks to finish the current season. Really you just need to force them to play Sat-Wed-Sat and you can batter through the league fixtures in 4 weeks. Cup Semi pushed that to 5, then you have a Cup Final and single leg Play Off taking it to 6. Scotland games and Euros pushed to next year.

So 6 weeks left of the season to play in 20 weeks. Ideally you give players 2/3, maybe even 4, weeks to recover. So to me we could 10-11 weeks without a game and still complete the season, and have a full 20/21, without all the fucking about unfairly punishing sides.

Why would Cowdenbeath be getting hearts or Dundee fans?

Nobody gets relegated from the Premiership, the top four come up from the championship for a16 team league is what I've described.

As for Queens Park, they're currently 5th in a 10 team league. Next season they would be in a ten team league with the four better teams no longer there so they'd be in with a great chance of promotion, whereas the league above would see about the bottom 8 or whatever dropping down for reconstruction to get the leagues back to where they are now.  Is it that harsh a blow for them.

 

[welldaft]

1 hour ago, Savage Henry said:

 

 

And there is never going to be any universally popular option either. That’s why I think they go with the “least controversial” option of a null and void season with no promotion or relegation.

 

 

How is that the least controversial. I will say it before and again now 80% of the season has been played. League money needs to be distributed and probably quite quickly to save some clubs going under.  You could split the money evenly, but that could deemed more controversial as why would Hearts have the right to an equal share after being pish most of the season.  

There would be more fallout from teams due to win titles and being promoted being told all is null and void. To be fair there are quite a few Hearts fans who are saying we deserve to go down. 

I am 90% certain they will give it 2-3 months to see if the season can be finished and if not then it will finish as is. Or Fifa /Uefa will take a vote from the 55 members and enforce across all associations. Someone has already pointed out the SPFL are able to decide when the season finishes in their and all clubs articles of association. In which case a legal challenge will most probably be expensive and above all else futile. 

[Ira Gaines]

I can't see many clubs having a problem with an even split tbh, given the potential circumstances of this. It's the one thing I could see everyone being in agreement with.

[A96]

I think the whole season being rendered null and void would be the last resort. And I think it’s inevitable that the number of games is going to have to be reduced.

I think also that they’ll set some sort of deadline for resumption of matches (eg 31st May) and if there are still no games being played by that date , they’ll come up with some sort of artificial method for deciding the final League placings for this season. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if the decision for the top flight was to reduce the season to 33 games each , and to do away with the post-split fixtures.

And if the matches haven’t resumed by the deadline ,  I think they might do something along the lines of deciding the scores for the remaining fixtures by reference to the aggregate score of the previous matches between the teams this season. So , for instance they could decide that whichever team “won” on aggregate from the earlier fixtures will be deemed to have won the third fixture by one goal to nil. And if the aggregate score from the first two games was a draw then the the third match will be deemed to be a 1-1 draw.

So taking the Motherwell v Aberdeen game that was postponed on Friday , we.......oops , sorry ....Aberdeen would be deemed to have won tha5 game 1-nil by virtue of having won the previous two fixtures 3-1 on aggregate.

[sergie's no1 fan]

I think we should have rattled in the 8 games in a 2-3 week period behind closed doors. I know the fans are the most important thing in football but I can't see any decent alternative now without cluster f**k ramifications.

[Raidernation]

Aside from the fact it’s probably not going to be an issue because this is going to be longer term, I see no problem with the transfer window situation.
Yes, it means 3 in a season but surely it’s not much different than the January one?
Clubs buy to cover injury and to try to “buy “ their way up the league at that point in time anyway.
For the “well Hearts” can spend more than Accies” debate, they can do that in January too, Shirley?
I don’t see that as a big issue myself.

[Pet Jeden]

1 hour ago, welldaft said:

How is that the least controversial. I will say it before and again now 80% of the season has been played. League money needs to be distributed and probably quite quickly to save some clubs going under.  You could split the money evenly, but that could deemed more controversial as why would Hearts have the right to an equal share after being pish most of the season.  

There would be more fallout from teams due to win titles and being promoted being told all is null and void. To be fair there are quite a few Hearts fans who are saying we deserve to go down. 

I am 90% certain they will give it 2-3 months to see if the season can be finished and if not then it will finish as is. Or Fifa /Uefa will take a vote from the 55 members and enforce across all associations. Someone has already pointed out the SPFL are able to decide when the season finishes in their and all clubs articles of association. In which case a legal challenge will most probably be expensive and above all else futile. 

Does it require a simple majority vote, or an 11-1?  Apart from Hearts, if I try really hard, I can think of one other SPFL club who would not be voting for current placings to stand with 8 games still to be played.

Also not sure Aberdeen will be keen to give up on Euro spot (and a chance to be pumped out by a Lithuanian team) and not sure Hamilton will want to take a gamble on a play off.

[Mr Heliums]

6 minutes ago, Pet Jeden said:

Also not sure Aberdeen will be keen to give up on Euro spot (and a chance to be pumped out by a Lithuanian team) and not sure Hamilton will want to take a gamble on a play off.

They'd get the European spot as the cup wouldn't be played.