How much will Coronavirus (COVID-19) impact Aston Villa's season?

[VinnieChase84]

I posted a few weeks back that if play cannot go ahead then the outcome would be
Top 3 promoted
No relegation
Larger prem

The EFL players were briefed on this exact outcome yesterday! They have been told it’s beyond unlikely that any play in June would be possible

[paul_e]

I was pretty much done with football BEFORE the lockdown.... If this goes ahead, it can definitely fuck off into the sea.

The only reason it's being pushed for a conclusion is MONEY. On the one hand, you've got Sky and others paying a country's national debt for the broadcast rights, whilst viewers are pausing their contracts due to no live sport, and on the other hand, smaller clubs won't be able to stay afloat if the ban goes on for as long as it SHOULD go on for, because the money is so top heavy.

You have charlatans like Ozil earning a reported £1.4 million A MONTH at Arsenal, whilst some clubs are borderline going bust because they can't pay their basic running costs?! Something's not right.

The one thing I hope that comes out of this is that the FA somehow step in and sort this mess out (though pretty sure they don't have the power to do so?). No football club or player deserves or NEEDS that much money - Every single one of them had humble beginnings, and a large portion of that money should be spread through the lower leagues. Forget Financial Fair Play - American style salary caps could be a better solution.

More money through the leagues would mean better training/scouting/science and can only lead to a better source of players for everyone in the long term, as well as securing the future of British football for everyone - Not just armchair Man Utd and Liverpool fans in Essex.

Salary caps are almost impossible to implement. Look at rugby for example. That's a sport with 4 major competitions/leagues around the world, English Premiership, Celtic Pro14, French Top 14 and super rugby in the southern hemisphere (the european competitions are built on top of the first 3 and don't alter the rules). All 4 leagues have different salary cap rules and a lot of players transfer to the Top 14 because it has the highest cap and can therefore pay the most. Now try implementing that in football with all the extra complexity of extra leagues. A salary cap that was actually restrictive would risk driving players away from the league and if it isn't restrictive then it's pointless.

I completely agree with the sentiment though. Personally I'd go with some sort of solidarity fund where every club with earnings (not profits) above a threshold pays in a percentage of the earnings above that and the money is used to help smaller clubs and grass roots football.

[aev]

Mayor of Liverpool saying it should be scrapped.

He is obviously an Everton fan

[Richard E]

I posted a few weeks back that if play cannot go ahead then the outcome would be
Top 3 promoted
No relegation
Larger prem

The EFL players were briefed on this exact outcome yesterday! They have been told it’s beyond unlikely that any play in June would be possible

Top 3 or top 2?

[Villan82]

Top two up, nobody down.

In any case, with the UK now among the worst affected countries in the world, accounting for about 10% (at least) confirmed global deaths, the mere fact that football thinks its 'business as usual' is disgusting.

[VinnieChase84]

I posted a few weeks back that if play cannot go ahead then the outcome would be
Top 3 promoted
No relegation
Larger prem

The EFL players were briefed on this exact outcome yesterday! They have been told it’s beyond unlikely that any play in June would be possible

Top 3 or top 2?

Efl players have been told top 3

[chrisw1]

Doesn't make much sense to promote 3 - for a start it would give an odd number of teams so one team would miss a game each week, plus 6 down the year after seems like carnage. 

But I'd still take it if that's all that is on offer.

[Risso]

French league awarding the title to PSG final standings to stand , ie teams in relegation zone relegated

I can't see PL clubs voting for this.  At superficial level points per game seems fair, but it's easy to drive a cart and horses through it when you look at the detail.  Best not to get too worked up about it as surely it can't happen.

At least in France the bottom three and the teams just above them have all played the same number of games.  And the bottom three are all at least three points from safety, so they've got a bit less of an argument.  Still shit though.

[malckennedy]

If they look at the game in hand they will look at the form of both clubs - it will be an easier decision to relegate us, than to drag a team that is currently out of the bottom 3 into the relegation zone.

Watford 3 Liverpool 0.

Absolutely, what a bizarre conclusion to come to, that something as fluid and intangible as form from nearly 2 months ago ought to be the basis for such an arbitrary decision. The notion that you could relegate us because of something as subjective as that is odd.

Why not let us stay up because we would pump Sheffied United, with 42,000 in a bouncing Villa Park under lights, with one of those atmospheres? Sound abit subjective and intangible?

Void the league.

Agreed. There is no other equitable decision that can be made. I’m not sure why anyone could think there is if 25% of the fixtures are not played and there are different numbers of unplayed games between the clubs.

[JJ-AV]

I really don't think they'll relegate us without playing

[PeterWithesShin]

Relegating teams with so many games to play would be a right load of bollocks, and i'd think the same if we were sat safely in 10th so it didn't affect us.

[Nii Lamptey]

Yep. It would be unjust if we were relegated without completing all of our games fairly and equally to our opponents.

But, on the flip side of that - Do we have anyone else to blame but ourselves (by that I mean our Manager, Coaching Staff and Players!)? Because lets face it, we've been absolute dog shit all season.

If someone waved a magic wand and we could start the season from where we left off right now, our only glimmer of hope is that McGinn is back fit. He'd be our only hope in getting out of it, and we'd definitely have dodged a bullet if we managed it. Based on how we've performed, you could argue that we don't really deserve to.

The only player in that squad who does deserve his place up there is Jack... but he'll be playing his football in that league next season regardless of who it's for.

Why is it that our own supporters are harder on us than anyone else? We do not deserve to be relegated, we do not have nobody else to blame but ourselves, we have not been "absolute dog shit all season". Remind me how much time we've spent in the bottom three - I bet it's a lot less than at least three other clubs. You keep self-flagellating all you like, but leave the rest of us out.

Hey Dave, I'm not saying we DESERVE to be relegated. I'd be screaming from the rooftops like all of us if we managed to get out of it.... We've also got a game in hand which if won, would see us out of the bottom 3 on merit.

What I meant by the comment was the amount of games where we've rocked up, expecting the team to build on a previous, possibly promising performance and..... nothing - Time and time again. Either through lack of effort/fitness, poor tactics, squad selection or game management we're back to square one, every flippin time!

The league table doesn't lie... it does however fib a little until ALL 38 games have been played fairly and consistently!

At present (with one less game under our belt), we're apparently the 2nd worst team in the league. Hopefully, common sense prevails and football is paused until the season can be continued fairly and safely, in EXACTLY the same way before it was stopped. If not, they've got to null and void it, ease FFP restrictions on clubs, compensate teams who were nailed on for achieving things, and then start again when safe to do so in a manner befitting of top tier football - NOT the equivalent of us and our mates having a kickaround on an astro turf pitch at the local sports hall

[London Villan]

Football at the top level in this country always finds a way to carry on. After Bradford, Hillsborough, Heysel games continued days afterwards - or were even completed at Heysel.

The only benefit of the early start of the premier league is that it is another step closer to some sort of normality... and that is a good thing, but at what cost?

[paul_e]

The examples you give don't really have much in common with this. None of them meant the safety of players, staff and fans were at risk if the games were played. Outside the world wars I don't think there's any obvious scenario to look back at for guidance on how this should be handled.

[Sexual Ealing]

I was pretty much done with football BEFORE the lockdown.... If this goes ahead, it can definitely fuck off into the sea.

The only reason it's being pushed for a conclusion is MONEY. On the one hand, you've got Sky and others paying a country's national debt for the broadcast rights, whilst viewers are pausing their contracts due to no live sport, and on the other hand, smaller clubs won't be able to stay afloat if the ban goes on for as long as it SHOULD go on for, because the money is so top heavy.

You have charlatans like Ozil earning a reported £1.4 million A MONTH at Arsenal, whilst some clubs are borderline going bust because they can't pay their basic running costs?! Something's not right.

The one thing I hope that comes out of this is that the FA somehow step in and sort this mess out (though pretty sure they don't have the power to do so?). No football club or player deserves or NEEDS that much money - Every single one of them had humble beginnings, and a large portion of that money should be spread through the lower leagues. Forget Financial Fair Play - American style salary caps could be a better solution.

More money through the leagues would mean better training/scouting/science and can only lead to a better source of players for everyone in the long term, as well as securing the future of British football for everyone - Not just armchair Man Utd and Liverpool fans in Essex.

Salary caps are almost impossible to implement. Look at rugby for example. That's a sport with 4 major competitions/leagues around the world, English Premiership, Celtic Pro14, French Top 14 and super rugby in the southern hemisphere (the european competitions are built on top of the first 3 and don't alter the rules). All 4 leagues have different salary cap rules and a lot of players transfer to the Top 14 because it has the highest cap and can therefore pay the most. Now try implementing that in football with all the extra complexity of extra leagues. A salary cap that was actually restrictive would risk driving players away from the league and if it isn't restrictive then it's pointless.

I completely agree with the sentiment though. Personally I'd go with some sort of solidarity fund where every club with earnings (not profits) above a threshold pays in a percentage of the earnings above that and the money is used to help smaller clubs and grass roots football.

While all my instincts are primed to be in favour of fleecing the rich and giving to the poor, I'm not sure what the justification would be for a fund that involves PL clubs doling out cash to fourth division or conference clubs so that they continue to live beyond their means. They are, after all, profit-seeking enterprises.