League Reconstruction 20/21 season

[MAC THE KNIFE]

SO HOW MUCH ARE SKY / BT SPORTS BILLING THE ENGLISH FOOTBALL LEAGUES  & THE RUGBY LEAGUE / YAWNION LEAGUES FOR DISRUPTING THEIR TV  SPORTS SCHEDULES ? 

[Bohemian]

1 minute ago, MAC THE KNIFE said:

SO HOW MUCH ARE SKY / BT SPORTS BILLING THE ENGLISH FOOTBALL LEAGUES  & THE RUGBY LEAGUE / YAWNION LEAGUES FOR DISRUPTING THEIR TV  SPORTS SCHEDULES ? 

No need to shout lad

[MAC THE KNIFE]

I HAVE VISION PROBLEMS ( NOT CAUSED BY BOOZE )

[Forest_Fifer]

This one is even worse than the Stan Petrov fantasist.

 

Has anyone heard from Stan? I'm starting to get worried..

[Bohemian]

1 minute ago, MAC THE KNIFE said:

I HAVE VISION PROBLEMS ( NOT CAUSED BY BOOZE )

Fair enough 

[Pet Jeden]

2 minutes ago, flood said:

Do you have similar costs of not startling 2020/21 league in August for the new Sky Sports contract?

 

I am sure the SPFL board would be fully aware of these costs...

Do you not think SKY would have waited for the delayed 2020-21 season to start?

[flood]

1 minute ago, Pet Jeden said:

Do you not think SKY would have waited for the delayed 2020-21 season to start?

Not without penalty. Knowing them they  will stick 100% to contract

 

[DA Baracus]

13 minutes ago, MAC THE KNIFE said:

I HAVE VISION PROBLEMS ( NOT CAUSED BY BOOZE )

A rare eye condition?

[JimmyMirren]

52 minutes ago, bennett said:

The price of calling the league early grows.

 

 

BT SPORT is locked in a £3 MILLION compensation fight with the SPFL after the season was ended early.

The broadcaster’s seven-year relationship with Scottish football ended last month as the SPFL wrapped up the top-flight campaign with nine games to play because of the Covid-19 crisis

 

It’s also believed BBC Scotland want compensation for radio and TV coverage they’ve missed out on.

Sky Sports agreed a cut-price exit deal on June 3, but BT Sport, who refused to comment, want the full amount

I’d be interested to see how BT Sport and the Beeb would try to enforce such a claim.

Most contracts involving such an unpredictable thing such as football fixtures (which could be affected by weather, changes in scheduling, etc) would have a ‘force majeure’ clause in the contract.

Effectively one or both parties could be relieved of contractual obligations (such as providing a certain number of games to broadcasters) if such an obligation proves impossible to fulfil due to an unexpected event such as a natural disaster, war, or major event. The Covid 19 pandemic could well be considered as such an event and with the Government at both WM and Holyrood imposing social distancing measures, restrictions on gatherings and sporting events, and imposing a lockdown its highly likely a judge would look sympathetically on relieving  obligations should such a clause be included in the contracts between the SPFL and the broadcasters.

I think it’s more likely to just be the gutter press trying to find a story now they can’t keep printing stories about how Hearts and Partick “might” stay in their respective leagues. Slow news day...

[Pet Jeden]

3 minutes ago, flood said:

Not without penalty. Knowing them they  will stick 100% to contract

 

Well, that's what I think too. They'll wriggle and renegotiate. There are half a dozen posters on here who lose their shit when I say this.

[The Grass Is Greener.]

35 minutes ago, MAC THE KNIFE said:

I HAVE VISION PROBLEMS ( NOT CAUSED BY BOOZE )

Dryhorce it’s been too long, welcome back.

[Pet Jeden]

12 minutes ago, JimmyMirren said:

I’d be interested to see how BT Sport and the Beeb would try to enforce such a claim.

Most contracts involving such an unpredictable thing such as football fixtures (which could be affected by weather, changes in scheduling, etc) would have a ‘force majeure’ clause in the contract.

Effectively one or both parties could be relieved of contractual obligations (such as providing a certain number of games to broadcasters) if such an obligation proves impossible to fulfil due to an unexpected event such as a natural disaster, war, or major event. The Covid 19 pandemic could well be considered as such an event and with the Government at both WM and Holyrood imposing social distancing measures, restrictions on gatherings and sporting events, and imposing a lockdown its highly likely a judge would look sympathetically on relieving  obligations should such a clause be included in the contracts between the SPFL and the broadcasters.

I think it’s more likely to just be the gutter press trying to find a story now they can’t keep printing stories about how Hearts and Partick “might” stay in their respective leagues. Slow news day...

But it was never going to be impossible to play the games, was it? BT and BBC will rightly say they could be played at a later date. Okay, so the SFA would need to allow existing player registrations to carry over. But the SPFL chose to break the 2019-20 contracts with BT/BBC/SKY, in the hope that they could clear the decks and protect the 2020+ SKY contract. (A cynic might wonder whether personal performance bonuses affected judgements). Hearts were just acceptable collateral damage - and Partick only got some belated, mealy-mouthed commiserations from the chairman as an afterthought several days after Dundeegate.

Edited June 16, 2020 by Pet Jeden

[Black Pennel]

6 minutes ago, The Grass Is Greener. said:

Dryhorce it’s been too long, welcome back.

Naw, that's not Dryhorce, but you knew that...YOU UTTER TRUMPET.

Dryhorce is still using the site under a different name and is still a pain in the jacksie.

Edited June 16, 2020 by Black Pennel
schpeeling.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

Would the BBC really sue Scottish football ? It would be an absolutely terrible look for them.

No doubt Tom English will be all for it.

[JimmyMirren]

17 minutes ago, Pet Jeden said:

But it was never going to be impossible to play the games, was it? BT and BBC will rightly say they could be played at a later date. Okay, so the SFA would need to allow existing player registrations to carry over. But the SPFL chose to break the 2019-20 contracts with BT/BBC/SKY, in the hope that they could clear the decks and protect the 2020+ SKY contract. (A cynic might wonder whether personal performance bonuses affected judgements). Hearts were just acceptable collateral damage - and Partick only got some belated, mealy-mouthed commiserations from the chairman as an afterthought several days after Dundeegate.

But we’re still in a situation where competitive football isn’t able to take place in Scotland? Not because the SPFL voted for an end to the season, but because the Scottish Government  mandate it. The clubs literally have just gone back to training, with distancing in place and a limit on how many can be on a pitch at any one time; and with stringent testing procedures.

Be realistic, when do you propose the remaining fixtures take place? The players are not match fit and will take time to condition, the clubs administrative staff in many cases have not yet returned to work, and the bulk of lockdown restrictions are still in place. Even if social distancing competent disappeared tomorrow it’s unlikely the clubs would be in any position to play a competitive match until at least July, by which case you have contracts running nearly two months beyond their end date, hampering anyone out of contract’s chances of finding a new club, You have no close season to recuperate, and even then you’re running the risk with people’s health!

I’m yet to see a single person who’s arguing that the league was ended too soon with any coherent, sensible, or even rational answer to any of the above...and I’m sorry Pet, I’m not expecting that to change. 

[Pet Jeden]

2 minutes ago, JimmyMirren said:

But we’re still in a situation where competitive football isn’t able to take place in Scotland? Not because the SPFL voted for an end to the season, but because the Scottish Government  mandate it. The clubs literally have just gone back to training, with distancing in place and a limit on how many can be on a pitch at any one time; and with stringent testing procedures.

Be realistic, when do you propose the remaining fixtures take place? The players are not match fit and will take time to condition, the clubs administrative staff in many cases have not yet returned to work, and the bulk of lockdown restrictions are still in place. Even if social distancing competent disappeared tomorrow it’s unlikely the clubs would be in any position to play a competitive match until at least July, by which case you have contracts running nearly two months beyond their end date, hampering anyone out of contract’s chances of finding a new club, You have no close season to recuperate, and even then you’re running the risk with people’s health!

I’m yet to see a single person who’s arguing that the league was ended too soon with any coherent, sensible, or even rational answer to any of the above...and I’m sorry Pet, I’m not expecting that to change. 

We are a couple of weeks behind  England. We could have been playing in July and August. Then straight into next season. The players can't need a break - they've been scratching their arses for the last 3 months.

[Dunning1874]

23 minutes ago, Pet Jeden said:

Well, that's what I think too. They'll wriggle and renegotiate. There are half a dozen posters on here who lose their shit when I say this.

People take the piss out of you when you say this because you make baseless claims about how not having fans in grounds means they'll not be getting what they've paid for, despite getting the agreed number of games from the agreed start date of the new contract. It's a blatantly ridiculous figment of your imagination.

This is obviously not the same thing as a  scenario where the start to the 20/21 Premiership season is delayed and truncated in order to finish the 19/20 season, because that would involve not getting the agreed number of games in 20/21 and not starting from the agreed date.

[Pet Jeden]

21 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

People take the piss out of you when you say this because you make baseless claims about how not having fans in grounds means they'll not be getting what they've paid for, despite getting the agreed number of games from the agreed start date of the new contract. It's a blatantly ridiculous figment of your imagination.

This is obviously not the same thing as a  scenario where the start to the 20/21 Premiership season is delayed and truncated in order to finish the 19/20 season, because that would involve not getting the agreed number of games in 20/21 and not starting from the agreed date.

Why couldn’t there be the agreed number of games in 20/21 if it started in Sept? Why would starting a month or so later cause SKY to wriggle, in your opinion?

[Guest JTS98]

7 hours ago, Doctor Manhattan said:

Tom English is really starting to get right on my fucking tits.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53062777

From the board room to the court room - SPFL reconstruction debacle continues

By Tom English

BBC Scotland

And so the battleground changes, from chairmen on Zoom to QCs in court, from indicative votes and extraordinary general meetings to the competition and markets authority and the SPFL articles of association. What joy. Isn't this the type of crack that made you fall in love with football in the first place?

Skin and hair has flown between club leaders these past months but they can all step aside now and let the legal profession take it from here. The recent history of the game is littered with examples of indignant clubs threatening court over one thing or another only to back away when they got a whiff of the cost, but this time seems different. In their bid to right the wrong of relegation from the Premiership - or expulsion - Hearts would appear ready to go the distance.

One of three things will happen now. Hearts will change their mind and accept their lot after the SPFL's proposal for an expanded top flight was rejected by clubs. Two, Hearts will lose a legal action and will have no choice but to retreat. Or, Hearts will win a legal action and a new kind of football hell will break loose. Success in court could mean the end of Neil Doncaster as chief executive of the SPFL for surely no leader would survive such a defeat. What it would mean for Hearts - compensation, reinstatement - is really hard to say. The silks are running the show now.

What we had on Monday was 26 of the 42 clubs who couldn't bring themselves to back a plan that would have spared three of their own members no end of misery, a plan that every last one of them would have supported had they been the one cast into the dismal plight of enforced relegation.

Instead, they danced on the head of a pin for weeks, incapable of finding agreement on the number of clubs they wanted in each division or how many divisions or whether these divisions should be temporary or permanent. To paraphrase a line from Blackadder, in all of those discussions they made about as much progress as an asthmatic ant carrying some heavy shopping.

In Tuesday's endgame they didn't even get close to a consensus. All of them said they had sympathy for the three clubs but if they did they had a strange way of showing it. Few, if any, of them thought it was fair that the three should suffer such a blow, but only a small number acted on those beliefs. The rest just declared the problem unsolvable and pulled the ladder up.

Because Hearts are the biggest of the three clubs facing relegation, most of the attention has been on them. That suits the other clubs who have voted against reconstruction. They want the argument focusing on Hearts and not Partick Thistle or Stranraer because it's easier to kick Hearts than it is Thistle, it's more convenient to bang on about Ann Budge - a misogynistic tone to some of it - and to mock Hearts' financial wastefulness and their awful decision-making than it is to confront the steepling injustice that is Thistle's situation.

That's a lot harder to face up to if you're one of the clubs who has done them in. So nobody really wants to spend much time talking about Thistle because it's uncomfortable. Maybe there's a bit of guilt there. Better to divert and bombard Hearts instead. Safer ground, that.

But let's look at Thistle. They are now a club in limbo, possibly starting their season in League One in January, but possibly not. Nobody knows. Nobody is giving them any information because there is no information to give. In terms of the restart, Leagues One and Two remain in no-man's land.

Some are happy to be there. Others are not. And Thistle are one of the others. Because they've been relegated with nine games of a season left to play while sitting two points outside of the safety zone with a game in hand people, will be out of work.

Getting unceremoniously dumped from the Championship, which is scheduled to begin again in October, is bad enough but then to be told that the league they've been dumped into might not be starting for another six months at least is a kick too far.

If they haven't already, they'll be forced to shed jobs. That's a direct consequence of not having games and not having income. How can anybody with a fair mind acknowledge that a grave injustice has been done and then vote in a way that does absolutely nothing to address that injustice?

The argument you hear is that nothing could be done, that all clubs couldn't bend to satisfy the wishes of one or two or three others. The people who are running the game couldn't find a better solution than this? What does that tell you about the people running the game?

Many of these same people are lying low. Ross County's Roy MacGregor was one of the few who raised his head above the parapet over the weekend when saying that Hearts should "take their medicine" and desist from legal action. He presumably meant that Thistle should also take their medicine. Let him and others justify those comments to Partick Thistle, a club whose future will be in jeopardy if, and probably when, it's confirmed that they can't play league football until next year.

No club deserves this kind of treatment. Having won just two out of 13 league games before football was suspended MacGregor's own club were in freefall. Even hopeless Hearts had more points than them in that period.

Had Ross Country continued that trajectory and dropped to 12th and were then robbed of a chance to rescue themselves because of the pandemic would MacGregor be practising what he's now preaching about taking his medicine or would he be highlighting a wrong and calling for support? It doesn't matter who the afflicted clubs are, no properly functioning governing body - one that purports to act in the interests of 42 clubs - would stand over this decision.

What's also heard in places is the bogus argument to end all bogus arguments, the one that has people saying that if their club was in the same boat as Hearts or Thistle or Stranraer then they wouldn't be making such a song and dance about it. Donald Findlay, chairman of Cowdenbeath, is one of the people who have put this one forward.All power to their magnanimity, but it's somewhat less than convincing. Selfless acceptance of a clear and obvious and hugely damaging injustice is not a trait that you would have associated with football in this county - or any other country - so these views have come as a genuine revelation.

We're asked to believe that people who scream the house down over a bad refereeing call would sigh and take their medicine when the very stability of their club was put in jeopardy. They wouldn't be happy, you understand, but they wouldn't be behaving like Budge with her legal action and her QCs and her vow to fight this to the last. They'd have more class.

They should save that stuff for the tourists. Court now beckons and with it comes the disapproving shaking of heads among clubs who have given Hearts no other option but to fight. "It's a sad day when lawyers get involved," said an official at one of those clubs who voted against reconstruction. If only his self-awareness matched his self-interest.

Is what's getting on your tits the fact that pretty much every word of that is right on the money?

[Guest JTS98]

51 minutes ago, Pet Jeden said:

Why couldn’t there be the agreed number of games in 20/21 if it started in Sept? Why would starting a month or so later cause SKY to wriggle, in your opinion?

This is what I wonder too.

In years to come people may look at the number of other leagues around the continent who found solutions to player registration issues and got their seasons finished. Somebody will be relegated in Austria and there will be no court case and no risk of a hefty pay out. Likewise in Poland, Switzerland, Russia etc.

Would Sky really have torn the contract to shreds if asked to delay the start for a few weeks so the season could be finished when we got the all-clear to play? I don't see any motivation for them to do so. Did the SPFL ask them?