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Season a write off?


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3 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

I hate to have this dig here as I know you aren't responsible for it and are likely against all of the breaches which have taken place so far, but see when folk say things like "there's no justification to keep the part time stuff going" when we've seen full time clubs rip the pish out of everyone with players heading out on the lash, players fucking off on holiday without obeying quarantine rules, clubs sending 60 folk over to Dubai for a piss up and others inviting despicable politicians in for a jolly with his family, it fucking pisses me off. What "message" does that convey to the general public when their wee Justin canny get to school?

My club is as much a member of the professional leagues as yours. We're offering to test our players as much as full time clubs and deal with the consequences of that. We've already spent as much money as full time clubs on getting our stadiums COVID compliant.  When the SG hit their vaccination targets in the middle of February we should be given the go ahead to get started again. The proposal from Leagues 1 & 2 seems extremely reasonable to me and I'll be disappointed if it's knocked back. 

 

Was just away to post similar. 

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Problem is they won’t hit their vaccination targets by mid February and schools won’t return till Easter holidays at the very earliest. Your points are valid but put yourself in the Government’s shoes, imagine the stooshie with the general public if they allowed fitba back with the restrictions currently in place which will continue long after the schools are back.

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16 minutes ago, Thom & Gerry said:

Problem is they won’t hit their vaccination targets by mid February and schools won’t return till Easter holidays at the very earliest. Your points are valid but put yourself in the Government’s shoes, imagine the stooshie with the general public if they allowed fitba back with the restrictions currently in place which will continue long after the schools are back.

I understand totally . That is where the counter argument comes in.   What other part of society  (schools included but possibly NHS excluded)  are going to or are prepared to go to the lengths and the expense football are to try and protect all staff and the public in general ? 

There are businesses currently operational who do far less but are allowed to carry on ..........as Skyline Drifter mentioned briefly earlier. 

Edited by theoriginalhedge
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20 minutes ago, Thom & Gerry said:

Problem is they won’t hit their vaccination targets by mid February and schools won’t return till Easter holidays at the very earliest. Your points are valid but put yourself in the Government’s shoes, imagine the stooshie with the general public if they allowed fitba back with the restrictions currently in place which will continue long after the schools are back.

The schools aren't proposing to test all pupils and staff on a regular basis so it is not a fair comparison.

Football should be looked at on it's own merit and not be compared to anything else. If the proposed protocols are deemed safe and achievable then consent should be given and politics and emotional blackmail should not be a factor!

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29 minutes ago, Thom & Gerry said:

Problem is they won’t hit their vaccination targets by mid February and schools won’t return till Easter holidays at the very earliest. Your points are valid but put yourself in the Government’s shoes, imagine the stooshie with the general public if they allowed fitba back with the restrictions currently in place which will continue long after the schools are back.

What do you mean "allow fitba back"? Football is still being played. 

Do people genuinely think that the general public who aren't into football are sitting at home right now thinking "I'm fine with Aberdeen travelling to play Hibs, but they fucking better not be allowing Dumbarton to travel to Forfar!"? Are they f**k. I'd be willing to bet a large percentage of the general public aren't even aware Leagues 1 & 2 have stopped. 

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Hopefully the proposals suggested by the L1 and 2 clubs include not allowing non-essential people anywhere near stadiums. E.g. directors and their families (particularly for away teams), sponsors, scouts, club chaplains etc.

Players and playing staff, a couple of social media/video streaming guys, a Covid officer and a club secretary with a set of keys for the front door should just about cover it.

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2 hours ago, Thom & Gerry said:

Personally think stopping the football will do little to quell the spread or not of the virus but we can’t justify starting playing fitba when the schools are not even back by then. It goes against all the stay at home and no travelling message, whether you agree or not with the strategy.

I think what’s often missed in discussions in response to individual sectors demanding that they be treated exceptionally is the additivity of individual decisions to transmission (R).  So there may be an argument that football doesn’t contribute much to transmission, or similarly restaurant meals, or reopening the schools, but doing several of these at the same time may take R above one.  But agree with the comments that there isn’t much rationality in allowing the Premiership and Championship to continue but not the other professional leagues.  (Other than the obvious point that Rangers* must win a championship at all costs.)

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10 minutes ago, David W said:

Hopefully the proposals suggested by the L1 and 2 clubs include not allowing non-essential people anywhere near stadiums. E.g. directors and their families (particularly for away teams), sponsors, scouts, club chaplains etc.

Players and playing staff, a couple of social media/video streaming guys, a Covid officer and a club secretary with a set of keys for the front door should just about cover it.

This is all just basically pointless window dressing either way though, there is approximately zero extra risk associated with this and would be entirely for the sake of the optics. If that's what it takes to get the go ahead then fine, but let's not pretend it's not purely for show.

Edited by craigkillie
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1 hour ago, The Moonster said:

I hate to have this dig here as I know you aren't responsible for it and are likely against all of the breaches which have taken place so far, but see when folk say things like "there's no justification to keep the part time stuff going" when we've seen full time clubs rip the pish out of everyone with players heading out on the lash, players fucking off on holiday without obeying quarantine rules, clubs sending 60 folk over to Dubai for a piss up and others inviting despicable politicians in for a jolly with his family, it fucking pisses me off. What "message" does that convey to the general public when their wee Justin canny get to school?

My club is as much a member of the professional leagues as yours. We're offering to test our players as much as full time clubs and deal with the consequences of that. We've already spent as much money as full time clubs on getting our stadiums COVID compliant.  When the SG hit their vaccination targets in the middle of February we should be given the go ahead to get started again. The proposal from Leagues 1 & 2 seems extremely reasonable to me and I'll be disappointed if it's knocked back. 

 

Firstly, I didn't say there was "no justification to keep the part time stuff going". I said it's harder to justify. Which it undeniably is. It's a much harder case to make.

Personally I think there's an argument for playing on at SPFL League 1 and 2 level if clubs can afford and are willing to pay for testing. I actually think though that it's madness for clubs like, for instance, Dumbarton whose financial issues are reasonably well known to commit to that level of costs and the benefits don't really justify the spend. I also think that at non-league level it's clearly not feasible for them to test and therefore with the current state of the pandemic not playing is inevitable below the SPFL for now.

It's not difficult to find breaches of rules or ill advised / bad pr technical non breaches. It doesn't change the general point though. Those are reported precisely because they are unusual and generally punished accordingly. As they should be.

For what it's worth, I'd prefer SPFL 1 and 2 got restarted asap too but I think it will be a difficult call for the authorities and I'm glad I'm not involved in making it.

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20 minutes ago, David W said:

Hopefully the proposals suggested by the L1 and 2 clubs include not allowing non-essential people anywhere near stadiums. E.g. directors and their families (particularly for away teams), sponsors, scouts, club chaplains etc.

Players and playing staff, a couple of social media/video streaming guys, a Covid officer and a club secretary with a set of keys for the front door should just about cover it.

Your point about people not necessary for the games themselves or their broadcasting is a good one.  When watching games via streaming I’m usually struck by how many people who don’t need to be there are there.

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Just now, EdinburghBlue said:

Your point about people not necessary for the games themselves or their broadcasting is a good one.  When watching games via streaming I’m usually struck by how many people who don’t need to be there are there.

Honestly looked like there was about 100/150 folk in the stand for our season opener against Partick Thistle. 

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1 minute ago, EdinburghBlue said:

Your point about people not necessary for the games themselves or their broadcasting is a good one.  When watching games via streaming I’m usually struck by how many people who don’t need to be there are there.

As a matter of interest, who? Directors are a very obvious suggestion though in a lot of cases, particularly with part time teams I'd imagine directors are genuinely working staff on a matchday, at least while the game itself is not in progress.

In my experience there are very few instances of people being in the ground who don't have an actual function in being there. potentially Directors apart and very few of those are travelling to away matches now

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7 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Firstly, I didn't say there was "no justification to keep the part time stuff going". I said it's harder to justify. Which it undeniably is. It's a much harder case to make.

Personally I think there's an argument for playing on at SPFL League 1 and 2 level if clubs can afford and are willing to pay for testing. I actually think though that it's madness for clubs like, for instance, Dumbarton whose financial issues are reasonably well known to commit to that level of costs and the benefits don't really justify the spend. I also think that at non-league level it's clearly not feasible for them to test and therefore with the current state of the pandemic not playing is inevitable below the SPFL for now.

It's not difficult to find breaches of rules or ill advised / bad pr technical non breaches. It doesn't change the general point though. Those are reported precisely because they are unusual and generally punished accordingly. As they should be.

For what it's worth, I'd prefer SPFL 1 and 2 got restarted asap too but I think it will be a difficult call for the authorities and I'm glad I'm not involved in making it.

Fair enough. I think clubs like Dumbarton are offering to pay these costs as the alternative is completely unknown. If we know that testing costs us X amount and we can get our prize money at the end of the year then that's a known risk. We don't really know what not finishing the season means for the club, but most likely no prize money and a much more difficult situation going forward into next season, if we even make it that far.

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9 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

As a matter of interest, who? Directors are a very obvious suggestion though in a lot of cases, particularly with part time teams I'd imagine directors are genuinely working staff on a matchday, at least while the game itself is not in progress.

In my experience there are very few instances of people being in the ground who don't have an actual function in being there. potentially Directors apart and very few of those are travelling to away matches now

Visiting Directors.  Managers or other back room staff from other teams.  George Galloway. 

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1 hour ago, The Resurrection said:

The schools aren't proposing to test all pupils and staff on a regular basis so it is not a fair comparison.

Football should be looked at on it's own merit and not be compared to anything else. If the proposed protocols are deemed safe and achievable then consent should be given and politics and emotional blackmail should not be a factor!

If football was being looked at 'on its own merit' then the season wouldn't have been allowed to start.

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22 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

Fair enough. I think clubs like Dumbarton are offering to pay these costs as the alternative is completely unknown. If we know that testing costs us X amount and we can get our prize money at the end of the year then that's a known risk. We don't really know what not finishing the season means for the club, but most likely no prize money and a much more difficult situation going forward into next season, if we even make it that far.

Coming back costs you a lot more than just testing though. As it stands your entire wage bill is covered by furlough and you've got your grants to meet any ongoing expenses. As long as the Premiership finishes, I don't think there's any realistic likelihood of you not getting prize money, the majority of which you've already received anyway. Whether they null and void  and distribute equally or declare it on a short season again, you'd get something. The commercial contracts that depend on a season being played are all keyed on the Premiership, not the other leagues. You'll unquestionably be significantly worse off financially coming back and playing compared to not doing when then opportunity is there even before you consider the costs of testing. Of course there are more difficult questions to answer like what the long term effects on the future are of not operating for an extended period.

Personally I'd be a little worried that in a lot of cases, part time sides who can ill afford it are rushing to come back just because they want to play and are being pressured by the Falkirk's of the world than because there's any sensible business case for it.

 

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12 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

As long as the Premiership finishes, I don't think there's any realistic likelihood of you not getting prize money, the majority of which you've already received anyway. Whether they null and void  and distribute equally or declare it on a short season again, you'd get something. 

Have clubs in Leagues 1 & 2 been informed this is indeed the case, or are you guessing that's how things would work out?

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5 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

Have clubs in Leagues 1 & 2 been informed this is indeed the case, or are you guessing that's how things would work out?

It's me surmising. But it's a fact that the commercial income pretty much all depends on the top division, and possibly to an extent the Championship for the playoffs etc.

It's a fact you've already had the majority of your prize money., the element which is non position specific barring a few thousand due in February. I don't think there's any realistic prospect of it being reclaimed and in that case the potential "loss" from not playing isn't remotely going to make up for the costs of team payroll and testing.

Edited by Skyline Drifter
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1 hour ago, The Moonster said:

What do you mean "allow fitba back"? Football is still being played. 

Do people genuinely think that the general public who aren't into football are sitting at home right now thinking "I'm fine with Aberdeen travelling to play Hibs, but they fucking better not be allowing Dumbarton to travel to Forfar!"? Are they f**k. I'd be willing to bet a large percentage of the general public aren't even aware Leagues 1 & 2 have stopped. 

For the record I’m all for football in all the Leagues continuing but was trying to look at it from a Government perspective. I’m sure the general public are not too bothered about where Dumbarton and the like are travelling but the vast majority who are into fitba follow Premier League teams and can you imagine the grief the Government would get if they now stopped that League. There is an election coming and a lot of the policy now is about keeping as many voters happy as they can.

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1 hour ago, craigkillie said:

This is all just basically pointless window dressing either way though, there is approximately zero extra risk associated with this and would be entirely for the sake of the optics. If that's what it takes to get the go ahead then fine, but let's not pretend it's not purely for show.

I agree there's very little risk. I agree it's entirely for show, in the same way that Sturgeon has apologised a million times for taking her mask off in an incident that should have annoyed absolutely no-one.

However, in the case of club/match sponsors, their £X is apparently worth entrance to a game, whilst my considerable £Y invested through a range of other sources is not. In the case of club chaplains, saying he had been at every game this season (why - who knows?) but couldn't be bothered trekking to Cove is a kick in the teeth to those who would be desperate for that opportunity. Seeing directors kicking about at every match for literally no reason in most cases; absolutely no difference to a normal fan being allowed in. Arbroath had a community leader on telly the other night; why is she getting into a game?! 

They get absolutely no sympathy for me at getting shut down and I say that as someone who has a gaping hole at 3 on a Saturday.

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