Jump to content

Coronavirus and the Scottish Championship


Recommended Posts

UEFA wants seasons completed and done by the end of June by any means possible, meanwhile SFA can't imagine football resuming until July/August/September.

Good to see todays big meeting cleared a lot of things up, not

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sure that 99% of people would also like to have the season completed in full: and the SPFL certainly doesn't need to make a call on that anytime in the near future. If the crisis steadily improves and we can start playing again at the start of May then that's great. But we have to be realistic and expect this to be unlikely to happen. So we need a set of back-up plans and to work out which ones are preferable at any given time.
What should happen, for example, if football can only resume at the start of June? Is it really feasible to hold eight league rounds, plus three play-off rounds in the Championship, as well as two Scottish Cup rounds at that point? The knock-on effects for 2020-21 become significant for what will - for most clubs - become dead rubber fixtures after a fortnight anyway. More importantly, player contracts (as well as insurance to cover serious injuries AFAIK) would expire and its also likely that UEFA will expect European qualification to be determined very quickly after any football resumes. For me, the Plan B in that scenario should be to move straight to the post-split matches in the top flight and to the play-offs in the lower leagues. As for the teams finishing bottom in the second and third tiers, you could maybe throw a bone by adding them and the 5th placed team from the division below into the play-offs as well, but I haven't given any thought as to how that system would then work tbh. Perhaps a mini-league with the top two from six teams at the higher level next season.
If you can't play any football at all before June 30th then you probably have to call the leagues as they are either right now or after 27 games in the lower league: but that has to operate at both ends of the table. It simply doesn't make any logical sense to argue that Celtic, Dundee United and Raith should be considered league winners (and gain promotion) under those terms but Hearts, Partick and Stranraer shouldn't be relegated. Either voiding the leagues or simply moving teams up and not down to not annoy people would be really stupid solutions IMO, but they're also on the table.


There is less of an argument to promote Raith automatically as they are only a couple of points ahead. The overriding principle should be not to penalise anybody for not getting the chance to survive or advance.
I think the only fair way is to complete the season even if that means completing it with different squads.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Did you just decide to make up rules to suit yourself here VT? That is not and never has been the case in Scotland (or anywhere else in the UK as far as I know).

He must’ve done, wot a prat. But you’ll wait a long time for an answer to your question,  whenever he makes a buttocks of something he slithers off and ignores it in the hope that it’ll just go away.

14 minutes ago, jagsfan57 said:


He must work for the SPFL

😄 serve ‘em right if he did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Thereisalight.. said:

It was in one of the papers today. I saw a link on Twitter. Both are hotbeds for scaremongering I know. I’d be very surprised if the games in June were in front of crowds 

 

2 hours ago, rb123! said:

UEFA wants seasons completed and done by the end of June by any means possible, meanwhile SFA can't imagine football resuming until July/August/September.

Good to see todays big meeting cleared a lot of things up, not

Can't see any of this happening, season is over

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, rb123! said:

UEFA wants seasons completed and done by the end of June by any means possible, meanwhile SFA can't imagine football resuming until July/August/September.

Good to see todays big meeting cleared a lot of things up, not

You can’t read.

Uefa want leagues done by end of June “if at all possible” but accept it may not happen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the games are unable to played the fairest solution I can think of is this. Before anyone argues I agree that it's not 100% fair.

Assuming that football can be played again come June or July or August and that all the leagues have been abandoned but there's not enough time to restart them then a round robin tournament could be arranged for the teams currently in the playoff places plus Hearts since the league is tight and the SPFL want to avoid being sued.

For example. Hamilton, Hearts, Inverness, Ayr and Dundee all play each other in one-off games at neutral venues. At the end of the tournament the top team goes to the Premiership, the remaining for 5 go to the Championship.

If you include Dundee United in the tournament then, the top 2 teams go to the Premiership and the remaining teams go to the championship.

The tournament could be played entirely in about 2 weeks.

Thoughts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, MeadowArab said:

If the games are unable to played the fairest solution I can think of is this. Before anyone argues I agree that it's not 100% fair.

Assuming that football can be played again come June or July or August and that all the leagues have been abandoned but there's not enough time to restart them then a round robin tournament could be arranged for the teams currently in the playoff places plus Hearts since the league is tight and the SPFL want to avoid being sued.

For example. Hamilton, Hearts, Inverness, Ayr and Dundee all play each other in one-off games at neutral venues. At the end of the tournament the top team goes to the Premiership, the remaining for 5 go to the Championship.

If you include Dundee United in the tournament then, the top 2 teams go to the Premiership and the remaining teams go to the championship.

The tournament could be played entirely in about 2 weeks.

Thoughts?

I think it's a load of shite.  

Why include Hearts but not Accies or St Mirren for example.  Why give Utd a free pass up?  Why would including Utd mean an extra promotion place?  

Why not top 4 in championship and bottom 4 in the premiership?  Max. 7 one-off games, winner goes /stays up  - if a championship team wins worst performing premiership team goes down.   4th bottom  v 4th top and so on for 1st round  - winner tie 1 v winner tie 4 for semis and so on - winners play off to go up/stay up . Can abandon the competition at any time if no championship team can come up.

  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Girth said:

Over in England Barnet have let all non playing staff go.

I wonder if this will the start of a sad trend.

Does that include the manager?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it's a load of shite.  
Why include Hearts but not Accies or St Mirren for example.  Why give Utd a free pass up?  Why would including Utd mean an extra promotion place?  
Why not top 4 in championship and bottom 4 in the premiership?  Max. 7 one-off games, winner goes /stays up  - if a championship team wins worst performing premiership team goes down.   4th bottom  v 4th top and so on for 1st round  - winner tie 1 v winner tie 4 for semis and so on - winners play off to go up/stay up . Can abandon the competition at any time if no championship team can come up.
  

Why should Dundee even have a chance of going up? You are shite!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, stewartyftd1 said:


Why should Dundee even have a chance of going up? You are shite!

Hey...I don't make the rules, i just make them up.  And being shite doesn't preclude a team going up - you were on the verge of proving that! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...