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COVID-19 In Scottish Football


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1 hour ago, HibeeJibee said:

I can see the argument as it's not to make up for lost prizemoney. Prizemoney is still being paid. It's to make up for lost gate money, as the government have banned crowds.

If for simplicity sake we say entry is £20 then Alloa receiving £500k is equivalent to 22 home games (average last season was 1,125); which is equivalent to a regular season of 18 home games plus 4 more.

Falkirk receiving £150k (average was 3,713) is equivalent to 2 home games.

When the discrepancy is so large, perhaps some composite model - a flat rate for your level, and a top-up varying with your crowds - might've been better.

 

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I can imagine it will even be helpful for some clubs who don't have existing debt. The biggest issue with this stoppage has been the unpredictability of it all - clubs had to shut down with almost no notice, and this restart has come along with loads of uncertainty. It's better to have the cash now to cover your costs, because at least loan repayments can be incorporated into your budget in subsequent years - it's basically another outgoing just like staff wages and the likes.

As far as I'm aware, the issues that Scottish clubs had in the mid to late 2000s was that they essentially just had massive big overdrafts, so they had debts which they were paying interest on but had no real plan in place to pay off. Then with the changes in the financial markets the banks started reducing those overdrafts and asking for the money to be repaid, which left the clubs needing to sell off assets to pay it, or in some cases forced them into administration. In this case, it seems like it's more of a standard loan, where you get the money now and know that you have to pay back £X a month for the next Y months. That is surely less problematic.

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48 minutes ago, Highlandmagyar 2nd Tier said:

I get the feeling that this season will be abandoned. 

Can't see it. Football was stopped before as they didn't have a grasp on anything, no testing etc. This lockdown is to preempt the mess Christmas will cause. What would be the benefit of cancelling the season? - stopping football would have a huge financial impact that I imagine would be massively disproportionate to any impact it would have on reducing covid. 

Government likely would need to provide funding as well. 

Edited by Mr Positive, sometimes.
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3 minutes ago, Mr Positive, sometimes. said:

Can't see it. Football was stopped before as they didn't have a grasp on anything, no testing etc. This lockdown is to preempt the mess Christmas will cause. What would be the benefit of cancelling the season?

Government likely would need to provide funding as well. 

Whilst I can see an exemption for the top division who are testing regularly, you can't have part-timer players touring the country when the schools aren't even open.

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3 minutes ago, David W said:

Whilst I can see an exemption for the top division who are testing regularly, you can't have part-timer players touring the country when the schools aren't even open.

That's true. I guess I did have a blinkered view with being a St. Johnstone fan and while aware lower leagues weren't testing didn't cross my mind when replying.

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Whilst I can see an exemption for the top division who are testing regularly, you can't have part-timer players touring the country when the schools aren't even open.
It's been fairly clear for a while that playing outdoor football is a low risk activity, certainly less risky than having thousands of kids crammed into indoor classrooms.
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1 hour ago, DA Baracus said:

Work is classed as an exemption. So football isn't under any threat at the moment.

There are hundreds of thousands of people (e.g. retail, hospitality) who will not have an exemption for 'work' because their businesses are shuttered. The optics of this for Scottish football are terrible IMO but after yesterday's grant money you can at least make a financial case that they might as well see things through in the SPFL. The Highland League delayed starting up specifically to get fans in and could be more of an issue depending on how the government support breaks down for each club at that level.

Berwick Rangers (for example) flashing an 'elite club' exemption for their squad to literally cross a closed border for 'essential work purposes' while the entire mainland is under lockdown is risible. 

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46 minutes ago, virginton said:

There are hundreds of thousands of people (e.g. retail, hospitality) who will not have an exemption for 'work' because their businesses are shuttered. The optics of this for Scottish football are terrible IMO but after yesterday's grant money you can at least make a financial case that they might as well see things through in the SPFL. The Highland League delayed starting up specifically to get fans in and could be more of an issue depending on how the government support breaks down for each club at that level.

Berwick Rangers (for example) flashing an 'elite club' exemption for their squad to literally cross a closed border for 'essential work purposes' while the entire mainland is under lockdown is risible. 

Yup, would agree with that. I said early on that Scottish football should have sat this season out it possible.

When part time players are unable to do their main job but can travel hundreds of miles to play a game of football it will look very silly, but there isn't a perfect answer.

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Don't know how long it'll go on for but I presume there will be talks behind closed doors about how long roughly they think it'll stay in mass tier 4. If it's expected to be <6 weeks then I can't see them even considering pausing the season. 

Looking on the bright side. Hopefully the lockdown is a catalyst to bring the numbers right down and therefore once restrictions are lifted allows more areas to move into tier 1 and more fans can get back. 🤞

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Its going to take a few months to get everyone vaccinated and numbers down to a manageable level.

I think we are kidding ourselves if we think there will be fans in any decent numbers at grounds at all this season.

I am more interested in when fucking pubs and restaurants can get opened again, tbh.

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14 minutes ago, Green Day said:

Its going to take a few months to get everyone vaccinated and numbers down to a manageable level.

I think we are kidding ourselves if we think there will be fans in any decent numbers at grounds at all this season.

I am more interested in when fucking pubs and restaurants can get opened again, tbh.

The myth being pandered by some that the vaccination would start having an effect by the summer was always a never going to be the case anyway by the looks of it - more just something said to give people something to be positive about. Vast majority of population won't have been vaccinated. For example for those who are <30 without an underlying health condition, the cast majority unlikely to get near a vaccination for at least 12 months from now? 

The more recent other mass vaccinations took a number of years to have a meaningful effect in terms of numbers on the disease it was to protect against. Albeit different viruses etc and I imagine different rollout procedures

Longer term though, next season surely won't be able to start without fans as we all know football clubs particularly in Scotland are no different to other businesses and cannot function without the no1 source of income. The Premiership clubs especially that any money they get to tide them over has to be paid back. 

On a personal view. I am one of those who does understand why fans haven't been allowed back in most areas. The financial benefit and for jobs etc simply didn't stack up so it was all potential risk for very little financial reward. Particularly if it's for the likes of 300 fans. 

Edited by Mr Positive, sometimes.
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Whilst I can see an exemption for the top division who are testing regularly, you can't have part-timer players touring the country when the schools aren't even open.


In a way that could make it less risky. Children are going nowhere so less likely to bring something home.
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We don’t necessarily need to vaccinate the whole population to start seeing better numbers on the virus.

Once we get to around a third or so of the population vaccinated, we’ll find the virus is much easier to control and we’ll be able to lift some restrictions. I’m optimistic football will be one of them.

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