Scottish lower league football locked down for 3 weeks

[craigkillie]

17 hours ago, bairn88 said:

Only professional/semi professional league in Europe currently postponed due to covid. What’s more likely, all other nations are wrong in their belief that playing football with huge precautions and restrictions has little to no affect on covid spread, or that our SPFL and gov are massively over cautious? 

This isn't even remotely true. Even just at a quick browse I found three third tier leagues across Europe that have either stopped or not started. The Belgian third tier stopped in October after four rounds of games and still hasn't restarted. The Dutch appear to have completely abandoned their season after originally starting it, and the Greek third tier still hasn't started.

[Sergeant Wilson]

23 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

This isn't even remotely true. Even just at a quick browse I found three third tier leagues across Europe that have either stopped or not started. The Belgian third tier stopped in October after four rounds of games and still hasn't restarted. The Dutch appear to have completely abandoned their season after originally starting it, and the Greek third tier still hasn't started.

He obviously didn't look below National League level in England. Or even top divisions in Wales or Northern Ireland.

[bairn88]

40 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

There have obviously been breaches of protocol, I'm not denying that.  On the whole I think the majority are working as they should be. Anyway, my point was that full timers are quite obviously at less risk of being infected than part timers.

I’m not talking about breaches of protocol.

The pretense that they’re “in a bubble” just is not true. They go home every single day to their families. They do the school run (when they were able to) and go to the supermarket like every other family. That is some bubble you have. Jonny Hayes was on the radio saying it’s more unsafe doing the school run or shopping every day than anything he encountered playing football. Again, evidence that whole leagues should be shut down isn’t there - indeed, the opposite is true.

[The Moonster]

1 minute ago, bairn88 said:

I’m not talking about breaches of protocol.

The pretense that they’re “in a bubble” just is not true. They go home every single day to their families. They do the school run (when they were able to) and go to the supermarket like every other family. That is some bubble you have. Jonny Hayes was on the radio saying it’s more unsafe doing the school run or shopping every day than anything he encountered playing football. Again, evidence that whole leagues should be shut down isn’t there - indeed, the opposite is true.

I don't think you understand what a bubble is in this context. Were you actually expecting full squads of players and staff to live away from their families for the last year, and they're not to be allowed to go shopping for food?

 

[Sergeant Wilson]

4 minutes ago, bairn88 said:

I’m not talking about breaches of protocol.

The pretense that they’re “in a bubble” just is not true. They go home every single day to their families. They do the school run (when they were able to) and go to the supermarket like every other family. That is some bubble you have. Jonny Hayes was on the radio saying it’s more unsafe doing the school run or shopping every day than anything he encountered playing football. Again, evidence that whole leagues should be shut down isn’t there - indeed, the opposite is true.

They don't go into houses, care homes, schoo!s, hospitals, factories, building sites...

By highlighting the weaknesses in the upper divisions, you are actually presenting an argument for them being stopped rather than the lower divisions restarted.

Football is working on the basis that it is being exempted from restrictions, that is a privelege, not the norm.

[bairn88]

28 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

This isn't even remotely true. Even just at a quick browse I found three third tier leagues across Europe that have either stopped or not started. The Belgian third tier stopped in October after four rounds of games and still hasn't restarted. The Dutch appear to have completely abandoned their season after originally starting it, and the Greek third tier still hasn't started.

This doesn’t scream “Dutch league has been completely abandoned“ to me? Oh, maybe you mean the second tier? Nah, that’s still playing too? 
 

Onto the “Belgian third tier” - it is an amateur league.

The Greek third tier - couldn’t find anything about it online, but I’ll take your word for it that it’s been shutdown. Greece, also, has one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe, with a nightly curfew between 21:00 and 05:00, despite daily deaths of around 50. If that is your sole example that Scotland is not an outlier in Europe, I’m not sure your point has much, if any, weight. 

[craigkillie]

You've shown me screenshots of results from the from the top two tiers of Dutch football. Well done in confirming that Ajax are still playing. And the Belgian third tier has previously been described as an "amateur" league, it isn't any more and contains professional clubs.

[bairn88]

3 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

You've shown me screenshots of results from the from the top two tiers of Dutch football. Well done in confirming that Ajax are still playing. And the Belgian third tier has previously been described as an "amateur" league, it isn't any more and contains professional clubs.

I have shown you that the top 2  (at least, haven’t bothered checking) leagues in holland are playing . Your statement “the Dutch have completely abandoned their season after originally starting it” is therefore untrue. It doesn’t get much simpler than that, even if you try the sarcy “well done for confirming Ajax are still playing” lol gag.

 

 

[Sergeant Wilson]

1 minute ago, bairn88 said:

I have shown you that the top 2  (at least, haven’t bothered checking) leagues in holland are playing . Your statement “the Dutch have completely abandoned their season after originally starting it” is therefore untrue. It doesn’t get much simpler than that, even if you try the sarcy “well done for confirming Ajax are still playing” lol gag.

 

 

What about the ones I raised?

[craigkillie]

2 minutes ago, bairn88 said:

I have shown you that the top 2  (at least, haven’t bothered checking) leagues in holland are playing . Your statement “the Dutch have completely abandoned their season after originally starting it” is therefore untrue. It doesn’t get much simpler than that, even if you try the sarcy “well done for confirming Ajax are still playing” lol gag.

 

 

I specifically said that I was looking at "third tier leagues across Europe", so I assumed that any competent reader would know what I was referring to.

[roman_bairn]

In Scotland at the moment it looks like on average 1 in 400 are carrying the virus. And this is one of the worst periods over the past 10 months.
So given all the procedures that have been put in place and all the testing that goes on in the top league it surprises me that we continue to see so many cases.
Whether we should be stopping at the moment, I’m really not sure.
I’d tend to err on the side of caution though ...

[The Moonster]

35 minutes ago, bairn88 said:

(haven’t bothered checking) 

lol

[Sergeant Wilson]

I think another thing @bairn88might be misunderstanding is the foreign leagues definition of amateur. I think lower divisions in other countries call anything that isn't full time professional amateur.

[jagsfan57]

Not really. A full time player can be tested on a Thursday and basically kept in isolation until the game on a Saturday. A part time player potentially would need to attend another work place on the Friday. There's clearly more risk for the part time players.

Do full time players stay in isolation from Thursday to Saturday ?

[jagsfan57]

I don't think you understand what a bubble is in this context. Were you actually expecting full squads of players and staff to live away from their families for the last year, and they're not to be allowed to go shopping for food?
 

Other sports were doing that. Cricket did it during the summer. Pretty sure rugby did it during the autumn and even then there were breeches.
It only takes one not to observe the protocols and everyone is at risk.

[The Moonster]

1 minute ago, jagsfan57 said:

Do full time players stay in isolation from Thursday to Saturday ?

I imagine they do some training on a Friday perhaps, whilst sticking to protocols, but if there were concerns about safety they would be in a position to isolate themselves. 

Are you genuinely arguing that full time football players going to a training centre carries the same risk as a part time player working on a construction site and also attending his training centre?

3 minutes ago, jagsfan57 said:

Other sports were doing that. Cricket did it during the summer. Pretty sure rugby did it during the autumn and even then there were breeches.
It only takes one not to observe the protocols and everyone is at risk.

 

Can you elaborate on the cricket and rugby examples? What teams isolated completely and for how long?

 

[Sergeant Wilson]

30 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

I imagine they do some training on a Friday perhaps, whilst sticking to protocols, but if there were concerns about safety they would be in a position to isolate themselves. 

Are you genuinely arguing that full time football players going to a training centre carries the same risk as a part time player working on a construction site and also attending his training centre?

Can you elaborate on the cricket and rugby examples? What teams isolated completely and for how long?

 

  He might be thinking of international cricket. At least one of the teams lived in the hotel at Old Trafford cricket ground.

[The Moonster]

29 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

  He might be thinking of international cricket. At least one of the teams lived in the hotel at Old Trafford cricket ground.

So a test match that lasted a week? Or a series that lasted a few weeks? Not really comparable to footballers having to isolate for 9 months of a year.

[Sergeant Wilson]

11 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

So a test match that lasted a week? Or a series that lasted a few weeks? Not really comparable to footballers having to isolate for 9 months of a year.

He'd need to elaborate for himself. Obviously there is no comparison that I can see.  County teams away from home could "bubble" while they were away, but again no comparison to football.

[theoriginalhedge]

18 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

They are able to facilitate a greater degree of separation of the players from the general public than part time teams can.

Whether the players stick to it is a matter of club and self discipline, but a full time player doesn't have to go to work when he's away from games or training.

That is the theory behind it but up until the lower leagues were shut down there were as many cases in full time as there were in part time, which brings the self discipline issue to the fore. 

Maybe the part time players are more disciplined than is being perceived.