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Why the Premier League’s lack of action is the best action they could have taken during coronavirus pandemic

There has quickly been a realisation that football has to be patient due to the coronavirus crisis becoming too complicated to resolve

Miguel Delaney
Chief Football Writer
Friday 20 March 2020 09:07 GMT
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Coronavirus: How has sport been affected?

Even before Thursday’s Premier League meeting began, it was clear that this would not be a forum to find “solutions” on how to finish the season, or to crown Liverpool champions. The tone had already drastically shifted since Tuesday and Uefa’s videoconference.

Up until then, there had been some feeling that this Thursday’s conference call would represent some kind of decision-day, where the Premier League would vote on the many contingency plans that had been put forward.

Among those was everything from expanding next season’s competition to 22 clubs, to mathematical models to decide positions, to just trying to play football between July and September.

The last option represents the closest to what will happen, but that wasn’t through the choice of any kind of vote.

It was forced upon them by circumstances, and the realisation that extending the postponement to 30 April is “all they can do”.

Anything else would be completely hostage to the Covid-19 situation.

This is something else that has marked such a chance in the last few days.

There was initially an almost naive – and widespread – feeling that football needed to make decisions, to offer some clarity on what next.

There has quickly been a realisation that they pretty much have to be patient, that there’s no point in doing anything that goes beyond ‘wait and see’. The situation really is too big, with repercussions way beyond the game.

There is a determination for the season to be finished (Reuters)

For their part, Uefa were key to this, with this game-wide stance pretty much set by Tuesday’s videoconference. That was the greatest consequence of that meeting, and why the postponement of Euro 2020 to Euro 2021 was also so symbolic. It caused a shift in the thinking. Everyone was encouraged to take a breath and to realise there’s no need to rush this.

It also admittedly fits with a greater drive around Europe, and in England. Everyone wants to try and finish the season.

This was something else that was made clear by the outcome of the Premier League meeting, and the FA board’s agreement to extend the 2019-20 campaign beyond the 1 June cut-off.

There is an acceptance now that, no matter what happens, 2020-21 will be affected.

The difference is that, even if it is, it can still be figured out how to truncate that season in a fairer manner. That is not the case with 2019-20. Almost any solution would be some way unsatisfactory, not least to the broadcasters who pay so much. This decision also buys time in that regard.

The Premier League held a meeting on Thursday 

As such, given we already have so much of this season done, it is on the whole better to try and complete this one and shorten the next.

That will throw up other complications of course, and they will form the next aspect of all this to consume the football authorities.

  • How, for example, do you deal with the many contracts that end on 30 June?
  • What happens to the summer transfer window? It will surely be postponed too.
  • How do clubs survive, and how much will the Premier League give to the lower leagues in badly needed solidarity?

This all has to be figured out next.

For now, though, the authorities have done pretty much all they can.

They’ve consequently made the right decision, in not making much of a decision at all.

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