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

[aev]

In terms of finding 7 clubs to vote against. I'd have thought Spurs and Arsenal might vote against, that way they won't have the ignominy of finishing 7th/8th and can have another crack at Champions League...

Plus there might be someone else out there who fancies fucking Liverpool over.... the team in 12th ....

Fans don't vote sadly. Money talks and so it trumps everything else it seems (well to me anyway).

Bottom 6 are obviously unhappy due to potential relegation and financial pain, other 14 seem happy to go ahead to get the cash. 2 sides of the same coin.

[VinnieChase84]

Few things I don’t get. You need the pyramid under us to go ahead under same conditions. So what’s gonna happen for neutral stadiums for the 400+ outstanding champ/league1 and 2 matches?

Secondly - irony is we can’t play home games as neutral has to be used according to police, however Villa park will be one of the chosen neutral venues to be used which we then can’t play at!?

Harsh as it sounds, if police say your own ground is not safe under current conditions to play then it’s case by case and tough shit. Why should we lose home matches!? It’s all self serving crap so why give in to the ££££top 6££££££

FairPlay to Purslow for standing our ground and reiterating how his job is for the interests of ASTON VILLA and no one else

[old man villa fan]

Surely it’s clear by now it’s going to be a long time getting to even a new normal. Why can’t the remaining games of this season be played JAN 21 to April . Earlier finish for euros and cancel season 20/21

I think the problem is clubs will go bust if they lose a whole seasons money.  There's also the players going out of contract inbetween.  It's one thing trying to extend players contracts for a month or two to try to finish the season in Jun-Aug, but I can't see players waiting 6 months.  For me, keeping next season as intact as possible ought to be a key priority for the PL.

This is why I think they have to play next season and make playing next season behind closed doors commercially viable all through the leagues, assuming that the social distancing is still a requirement but there is an improvement from where we are now.  I do not know how much it costs to broadcast a match on TV and it will clearly differ depending on the quality at PL level, compared with Div. 2.

Currently, a team's supporters consist of season ticket holders, match by match fans from the odd game to almost the complete season and the casual supporter that does not or cannot get to games.  The question is, if the matches were available to watch on TV, how much would the fans pay to watch?  Going to a match does not just cost the cost of the match ticket but travel, refreshments etc. Would clubs draw in more fans through it being available in your living room, rather than the high cost of attending games.  What about away matches where a lot of fans are put off going because of limited ticket availability, poor facilities, time, cost etc.  A one-off TV ticket to another clubs home game could bring in more money than team currently get out of away games.  Add in local advertising and you could get to a point that the net income is greater for clubs lower down the leagues than they currently get through the gates and the odd TV income.

To make this work, a TV broadcaster would need the same as Sky have for selecting one of, say, 6 matches that are being played at the same time.  For a club to stage a behind closed doors match there will be additional costs but there will also be savings and there will be lost income that need to be factored in.  For next season there is going to have to be a suspension of the current TV deals and introduce a special one-off deal with buy in from TV, EPL and EFL.

I think it could work but the impact could have implications going forward and change football if it is successful.

[andyh]

Few things I don’t get. You need the pyramid under us to go ahead under same conditions. So what’s gonna happen for neutral stadiums for the 400+ outstanding champ/league1 and 2 matches?

Secondly - irony is we can’t play home games as neutral has to be used according to police, however Villa park will be one of the chosen neutral venues to be used which we then can’t play at!?

Harsh as it sounds, if police say your own ground is not safe under current conditions to play then it’s case by case and tough shit. Why should we lose home matches!? It’s all self serving crap so why give in to the ££££top 6££££££

FairPlay to Purslow for standing our ground and reiterating how his job is for the interests of ASTON VILLA and no one else

I think the neutral ground is more designed to prevent fans from travelling/congregating at stadiums.
If Villa were to play Arsenal at Newcastle’s ground for instance, then there would be little chance of fans going.

Where this falls down obviously is when Liverpool play, wherever that would be there will be thousands of scousers there.

[Richard E]

They could always play Liverpool's games in Ireland or Norway then to avoid that risk. No, hang on, that doesn't work either.

[Small Rodent]

Are there really that many fans who don't give a shit about the health of others enough that they'd go to the ground to shuffle about doing nothing?

[frank black]

In terms of finding 7 clubs to vote against. I'd have thought Spurs and Arsenal might vote against, that way they won't have the ignominy of finishing 7th/8th and can have another crack at Champions League...

Plus there might be someone else out there who fancies fucking Liverpool over.... the team in 12th ....

 I’m not expecting them to void the season, we’ll go down on points per game or project smashthevirususingfootball will happen.

[old man villa fan]

The more that it becomes inevitable that the football season is over the more you start to see a lot of people’s true colours. And it’s quite ugly. People continue to die at an alarming rate yet many so called leaders clearly could not give a fuck. For the wealthy we are all expendable if they impedes their wealth. Then again for them we always have been behind their fake smiles.

Deep down and maybe not that deep down, we all know that football at least at the PL level has been totally corrupted by money largely through sky, for decades. Add to the farce of the champions league, circulating cash round the few at the top through endless rounds of games as opposed to the old European cup where teams could actually get knocked out after a couple of rounds and teams like villa and forest could win the thing.

We all know this, but because we love the game and our chosen team we choose to at least partially ignore it every weekend, even at 4pm on a rainy Sunday we’re at VP because it suits the money men.

Football mirrors what’s happened with the rest of society over the last 30-40 years.

The govt had stemmed I think social unrest with furlough, but let’s not kid ourselves that their massive underfunding of the nhs and care system over the last decade is one of the reasons we now have the highest death rate in Europe.

At the same big business does everything it can to protect its business model and that largely means f**ing most everyday people over. Virgins letting thousands of staff go as have/will Ryan air and God knows how many other multi nationals, those at the top of those organisations, will not suffer a bean through this.

The premier league is no different

Sky
Wealthy owners
Shareholders
Chief execs
Agents
Players
Managers
Poor feckers on minimum wage or near enough it working at club




Supporters (those subscribing to sky a little higher)

The whole mantra of society pulling together is true in terms of key workers and appreciation for them, but not in terms of the whole of society. Business rolls on, the rich will protect their wealth at any cost, more poorer people will die of covid19 and in the midst of all this the farce that is the PL will restart behind closed doors somewhere. Dirty dirty business this and after loving football and the villa all my life, I’m struggling to care anymore.

Two things above that I have highlighted in bold which are the same and is constantly thrown up.  There is no difference in business from a self-employed person, to a person running a business employing 6 people, to one employing 50, 100's or 1000's, they all want to protect the financial side of the business.  They all (self-employed excepted) employ other people who rely on those businesses for employment.  There isn't big business and the rest, it just scales up from small businesses to the biggest.  Integrity is the just the same with the smallest businesses as the biggest, it can be good, it can be bad.

What we are seeing in football now is not like other businesses who can control their own destiny by making their own decisions.  Football is a group of businesses and, in the case of the EPL, decisions on the individual clubs are going to be made by committee with outside influence.  The lobbying that is going on through the media is unbelievable.  Purslow said that not having relegation was not even discussed and yet it was all we have been reading about over the last couple of days.  Who is right?  I would tend to believe somebody more that says it at an interview than a 'source'.  The whipping up of sentiment across social media on this one item alone has been tremendous.  The agenda is slanted to becoming an unbalanced discussion.  Fairness is being taken off the table by the non-reporting of facts.

[simon ward 50]

"Raaab the c*** said it’s to lift the morale of the country, so surely everyone will welcome valuable resources being diverted to football."

If his football knowledge is as good as his geography we are doomed I tell yer!

[chrisw1]

LMA Chief now expecting the season to be cancelled if 14 of the teams can't agree to the neutral venues. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52558225

40,000 tests to keep the game going and the government still only hitting 80,000 there is no way are they restarting any time soon.

But that is 40k over a 8 week period so just over 700 a day? Mind you, still a fair whack of the daily number.

Unless they are completely on top of testing which I doubt, will the general public be ok with resources being used in this way?

Raaab the c*** said it’s to lift the morale of the country, so surely everyone will welcome valuable resources being diverted to football.
Hurrah !

I don't see how you could lift the morale (of the many not the few) more than by cancelling Liverpools title and denying Leeds and WBA promotion?  Football fans everywhere will be in stiches.

[old man villa fan]

Few things I don’t get. You need the pyramid under us to go ahead under same conditions. So what’s gonna happen for neutral stadiums for the 400+ outstanding champ/league1 and 2 matches?

Secondly - irony is we can’t play home games as neutral has to be used according to police, however Villa park will be one of the chosen neutral venues to be used which we then can’t play at!?

Harsh as it sounds, if police say your own ground is not safe under current conditions to play then it’s case by case and tough shit. Why should we lose home matches!? It’s all self serving crap so why give in to the ££££top 6££££££

FairPlay to Purslow for standing our ground and reiterating how his job is for the interests of ASTON VILLA and no one else

I think the neutral ground is more designed to prevent fans from travelling/congregating at stadiums.
If Villa were to play Arsenal at Newcastle’s ground for instance, then there would be little chance of fans going.

Where this falls down obviously is when Liverpool play, wherever that would be there will be thousands of scousers there.

I have heard about the neutral venues for the EPL but has anything been said about the Championship, Division 1 and 2.  For the EPL, there will probably still be 300 (10 clubs x 30) extra people travelling around the country and possibly requiring hotels etc.  The neutral venues solution is purely to try and get the Government on side but I bet it hasn't come with a detailed logistics exercise to go with it.

How is the EFL going to be bought off, as there have been quotes that clubs will lose money completing their fixtures behind closed doors.  I think the EFL are holding out to negotiate a change to the financial structure of football in this country based on the recent quotes from Parry.  If this fails, I think they will fold and void the season.  Relatively, they have more to lose financially by starting up again.  They will then be in the 'how to decide promotion/relegation' without the massive money to cloud the issue.  Possibly, only two (or three) teams stand to gain anything from holding out for promotion to the PL and could sway the voting to accept just voiding the season as soon as possible.  This could then make the EPL decision to play on, easier.

[Jon Crofts]

Bundesliga given the go ahead by Merkel to restart this month.

[andyh]

Are there really that many fans who don't give a shit about the health of others enough that they'd go to the ground to shuffle about doing nothing?

Now, you know you know the answer to that.

[TopDeck113]

"Raaab the c*** said it’s to lift the morale of the country, so surely everyone will welcome valuable resources being diverted to football."

If his football knowledge is as good as his geography we are doomed I tell yer!

Raab is either not a football fan, or, if he is, not a fan of a club with the propensity to make far too many Saturday afternoons a misery.

[Ad@m]

Purslow talking well, highlights
- wont agree to neutral venues unless 'conditions right' as obviously its a disadvantage
- player health - nowhere near enough info as yet one medical side

I would be interested to hear him expand on his point regarding neutral venues, what conditions would be right to give back the home advantage?

I'd say the particular condition he's talking about is the removal of the risk of relegation.