Because I think once a case gets in it’s unlikely in the confines of an operating football team that it fails to spread from that first case.
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The premier league just bungles from crisis to crisis. There are no clearly defined parameters for postponements. You would think that almost 2 years into this that they would have the tiniest clue of what to do instead of sticking their heads in the sand.
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Chelsea have 3 cases as well, luckily for them Everton don’t seem to have any players.
It’s still quite strange to me. And I say this based off my own experience.
My time in America I spent auditing several workplaces for a very specific government sponsored project. Some of these companies 50, 100, 150 workers. Warehouse setting, office setting, a variety of work environments, all working in very close proximity to each other. In relation to the number of employees the active Covid cases never, at any time, exceeded 6% of the total workforce. And the one time it did reach 6% was the outlier.
If this is how quickly Covid spreads for within the confines of PL clubs, who clearly then must operate differently than the rest of the world, just shut it all down until March. Give it 90 days and come back later. Or simply ‘null and void’ the season now and try again next year.
It seems silly to keep kicking the can down the road. And it’s all quite disruptive. Take a definitive action now to keep these athletes and fans safe.
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Don’t worry. They are fucking shite.
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I do feel we are heading to closed doors to be honest. Whitty has said they won’t know fully how serious this until that middle week between Xmas and New Years.
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I think there several factors that change the realities we’re dealing with though.
Firstly, the biggest curve ball we have with covid is that period between exposure and the ability to test positive. What that means is the discussion about postponements is not just factoring in observed positive cases, but potential cases who are unavailable because they’re in quarantine waiting for the point at which they can even deliver a positive test. This issue, far more than the actual case load, is what is going to throw off the ability of a side to fulfil a fixture.
The second is that Omicron does appear to be different.
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For sure. The more I think about it I’m in total favor of shutting the league down now.
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See the UK government.
Money talks, innit?
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Just my opinion of course, but I believe as a society we may have let our guard down too soon. This is getting worse, people are dying and to think PL clubs may actually be using Covid/Omicron as a means to manipulate their own desires. Seems quite grotesque in a moment like this.
Just shut it down now. Freeze all wages and have clubs pay back broadcasting payments. I do wonder if Thomas Frank would still be so magnanimous if his wages were withheld and his bosses had to rebate millions.
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Just seen the football league fixtures on Saturday that looks like a mess as well.
Unless they take action soon then their best time of year is going have very little action.
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The issue is when you shutdown again, from a football club pov, what’s the point in getting vaccinated and a booster shot if the season is going to be cancelled anyway? The next variant is around the corner, 6 month, a year? So rinse and repeat?
The past 2 seasons have “survived” the peak of COVID with low vaccination rates, yet now people are advocating shutting down when we have high vaccination rates. It doesn’t make sense to me. Another significant stretch of football without fans/games is going to once again financially devastate football (revenues) even more so this time and suck the life out of watching the games (fake stadium noise), even more so this time.
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I would suspect that new clubs to the PL are very behind when it comes to COVID protocols.
Given the phenomenal compression of time scales we are seeing, I don’t think there is even a need to talk about the whole season. The Bundesliga’s winter break is almost ideally positioned, they may simply need to delay a week’s worth of fixtures to be on the other side of the peak.
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Just wait untill after the Xmas schedule with all of the extra games on TV and I bet the league will be stopped.
Might only be a 2 week circuit breaker but it will happen, once the P/L have gotten their tv bonuses
Scrap one of the league cup semi finals, move the Quarters to the first leg midweek. Move these fixtures here to late on in the season or play them over latter FA Cup weekends where possible.
Then you’ve got a 7-10 days just to get the protocols back into place.
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Just play.
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Think I’ve just heard on ‘Sky’…some players PL/CHAMPIONSHIP…no intention of getting the vaccination…wtf…are they wimps or something…geez…we all want to get back to normal…but this is beyond a joke…brave men, get in, close your eyes, get jabbed…fgs…
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