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COVID-19 In Scottish Football


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56 minutes ago, G51 said:

I don't get the clamour to have football stopped because other things have stopped as well.

The whole point of the restrictions are to ensure public safety. Football without crowds is a low-risk activity - the number of positive tests we've had in the top two SPFL leagues this season are very small.

Stopping a low-risk activity just to show some kind of weird, twisted solidarity with other industries that cannot open because they are high-risk is daft.

I've been asking that for weeks when people say "footballs got to be stopped"

What would the benefit of it being stopped? Stopping full time football would have very little impact on the spread. 

It's almost as bad as those claiming the part time football was stopped "because Celtic went to Dubai". 

Edited by Mr Positive, sometimes.
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47 minutes ago, virginton said:

The Premiership will likely continue but the Championship could be called soon and the leagues below scratched. 

I wouldn’t bet on it, but your teams players and staff just might! 😂 

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8 minutes ago, Mr Positive, sometimes. said:

I've been asking that for weeks when people say "footballs got to be stopped"

What would the benefit of it being stopped? Stopping full time football would have very little impact on the spread. 

It's almost as bad as those claiming the past time football was stopped "because Celtic went to Dubai". 

Football with no fans involves a very small number of people carrying out a low-risk activity to provide entertainment to a huge number of people - entertainment that is desperately needed at the moment, because there's f**k all else going on in our lives.

There are other, more high-risk activities that are still being carried out that don't have the upside. Half the country is still going into the office FFS. Shutter them first if we're still struggling to get the virus under control.

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3 minutes ago, Snafu said:

I've heard it a few times since last week.

Football isn't that important in the grand scheme of things but it serves as a welcome distraction for many and most of these players who are full time can remain in a bubble. If there are infections within that bubble, they isolate and two weeks later if fit continue playing. Concern is mainly for the older staff and older club members at clubs who won't shake of the virus so easily, this includes managers and the coaching staff.

 

I highly doubt you've heard multiple people say that Rangers winning the league is far more important than anyone's health tbh. And in any case, it's clearly not what I was saying.

There are protocols in place to minimise the risk to non-playing staff. I don't think we've seen any evidence so far to suggest that they don't work.

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31 minutes ago, G51 said:

Football with no fans involves a very small number of people carrying out a low-risk activity to provide entertainment to a huge number of people - entertainment that is desperately needed at the moment, because there's f**k all else going on in our lives.

There are other, more high-risk activities that are still being carried out that don't have the upside. Half the country is still going into the office FFS. Shutter them first if we're still struggling to get the virus under control.

Football involves groups of people travelling up and down the country to kick a ball around every week while individuals can't meet more than one other person outdoors (within five miles of their LA area) without being collared by the police. 

The idea that their 'entertainment' value should grant part-time footballers a special exemption to play is ridiculous and it is not even commercially worthwhile to do either. Staff can be bunged on furlough and the pointless exercise scrapped while leagues that have the required infrastructure to continue playing provide entertainment on a daily basis. That may well include the Scottish Premiership but not the leagues below it where regular rounds of testing would be ruinous.

Edited by vikingTON
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19 minutes ago, G51 said:

There are protocols in place to minimise the risk to non-playing staff. I don't think we've seen any evidence so far to suggest that they don't work.

Morton's Covid outbreak of a couple of weeks ago was ostensibly caused by a member of the non-playing backroom staff testing positive and then players isolating/testing positive after getting tested. It is just like any other workplace in which 'Covid-safe protocols' reduce but do not in any way remove the likelihood of an outbreak occurring.

Edited by vikingTON
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Interview with cockwomble Doncaster.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-9149501/Battle-survival-toughest-70-years-declares-embattled-SPFL-chief-Neil-Doncaster.html

Is it time now for a ban of curtailment of goal celebrations?

ND: I think it's important we keep everything under review. There is no evidence I am aware of existing of transmission between players on the field of play. The transmissions to date appear to have occurred in dressing rooms, on buses or at meal times.

It would seem he is now qualified as an epidemiologist. 

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Can anyone explain to me the motive behind the Stenny chairman meltdown?

Yes wasn't ideal that you didn't get notice but notice wouldn't have made a difference. Not being allowed to ask questions at the recent meeting I imagine was because he was going to just derail the whole agenda of the meeting - again not ideal but surely there's official channels to ask all the questions he wanted? 

Do they actually want to continue to play and test weekly and pay the astronomical sums for those tests? 🤦‍♂️ 

The fact he tried and failed to get voted onto the SPFL board suggests the majority of his peers think he's an idiot and do not take him seriously as well?

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11 minutes ago, virginton said:

Football involves groups of people travelling up and down the country to kick a ball around every week while individuals can't meet more than one other person outdoors (within five miles of their LA area) without being collared by the police. 

The idea that their 'entertainment' value should grant part-time footballers a special exemption to play is ridiculous and it is not even commercially worthwhile to do either. Staff can be bunged on furlough and the pointless exercise scrapped while leagues that have the required infrastructure to continue playing provide entertainment on a daily basis. That may well include the Scottish Premiership but not the leagues below it where regular rounds of testing would be ruinous.

That sounds like your problem is with the existing government restrictions preventing people meeting outdoors, which are ridiculous and stupid. But two wrongs don't make a right - just because they've fucked up letting people meet outdoors, doesn't mean they should compound that f**k up by stopping another low-risk activity.

Regular rounds of testing are now mandatory for the Championship, and it appears as if those clubs will be able to absorb the costs okay or we'd have heard otherwise.

 

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Aye, winning that league title and stopping Celtic from winning 10 in a row is far more important than anyone's health.
I along with thousands like me could not give a flying f*ck whether Celtic win 1000 in a row. We just quite like the simple pleasure of being at the very least be able to watch our teams play via live stream amidst all the doom and gloom of a monotonous week.
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Before the season started they should have been setting a minimum number of games required to call the season on PPG with null and void otherwise, ideally 22 for the Premiership and 18 for the leagues below. I still think in the event it was stopped and couldn't be restarted it would entirely justifiable to take those numbers as the basis for a decision, but does cause a bit of a headache in the plausible scenario that the Championship doesn't make it to 18 games while the Premiership is obviously going to have everyone at 22 by the end of this month.

If you've got the Premiership being called on PPG and the title being awarded, then there's really no argument against the bottom side being relegated as well. However if the Championship is called after 13 games or whatever you can't justify awarding the title on so few games, so Ross County or whoever ends up bottom would just have to get away with it in that scenario, which wouldn't at all cause months of meltdowns.

I doubt it'll come to this anyway, even in the event of the suspension of lower league football is extended to the Championship. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of football being allowed, you'd imagine if at some point in March cases have started to decline and wider restrictions are lifted as weather improves then lower league football will be allowed again as well, and if you just cut the lower league season to 18 games rather than 27 it should be possible to finish on time.

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4 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

Before the season started they should have been setting a minimum number of games required to call the season on PPG with null and void otherwise, ideally 22 for the Premiership and 18 for the leagues below. I still think in the event it was stopped and couldn't be restarted it would entirely justifiable to take those numbers as the basis for a decision, but does cause a bit of a headache in the plausible scenario that the Championship doesn't make it to 18 games while the Premiership is obviously going to have everyone at 22 by the end of this month.

If you've got the Premiership being called on PPG and the title being awarded, then there's really no argument against the bottom side being relegated as well. However if the Championship is called after 13 games or whatever you can't justify awarding the title on so few games, so Ross County or whoever ends up bottom would just have to get away with it in that scenario, which wouldn't at all cause months of meltdowns.

I doubt it'll come to this anyway, even in the event of the suspension of lower league football is extended to the Championship. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of football being allowed, you'd imagine if at some point in March cases have started to decline and wider restrictions are lifted as weather improves then lower league football will be allowed again as well, and if you just cut the lower league season to 18 games rather than 27 it should be possible to finish on time.

You're right, the obvious thing to do was to set rules for what would happen before the season started. That way, there's no argument in the event of a stoppage about what would happen.

However, the major difference between this year and last year is the TV deal. We're in a much better position to simply restart and complete the season this year.

If for some reason, that's not possible (difficult to see that scenario) then my take on it would be the same as last year: there are no good options, they all suck, but it's marginally (and I mean marginally) more fair not to award titles and relegations that haven't been clinched than it is to award ones that haven't.

But it's just so unlikely that we ever reach that scenario. It's especially really difficult to see why we couldn't complete the season at a later date before playing an abridged one later.

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12 minutes ago, G51 said:

 

However, the major difference between this year and last year is the TV deal. We're in a much better position to simply restart and complete the season this year.

 

Yes , having seen how the English managed to conclude last season's Premier and Championship , if the worst was to happen up here again I think they would wait it out and complete it this time !

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4 minutes ago, billyg said:

Yes , having seen how the English managed to conclude last season's Premier and Championship , if the worst was to happen up here again I think they would wait it out and complete it this time !

Broadcaster likely to be much more understanding as well as they're still getting what they paid for. Just a bit later in the calendar. 

Edited by Mr Positive, sometimes.
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3 hours ago, Coventry Saint said:

In my very humble opinion it's been most unfair to Hearts fans that they've not actually been able to experience the novelty of a few different away days this season. So voiding certainly has its merits.

Given the shite that Hearts fans were spouting at the start of the season, it’s unfair on them that they have not been able to carry out their boycott of all of the grounds in the Championship.

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19 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

Given the shite that Hearts fans were spouting at the start of the season, it’s unfair on them that they have not been able to carry out their boycott of all of the grounds in the Championship.

The fuckers will probably claim they've been doing it.

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1 hour ago, Big Fifer said:

The Stenny chairman's complaints are extremely confusing. I don't want to defend Doncaster but 42 teams + SPFL officials all speaking over each other on one zoom call would be completely pointless. 

 

I'm sure that they could have allowed individual chairmen to be unmuted and have their say and question the organisation which is supposed to represent the clubs. 

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