It has been a week since the country has been in lock down and three weeks since Wigan Athletic last kicked a ball. The Coronavirus has hit the world and made everyday life so different.
Football and all spectator sports have now all been suspended, and I don’t think there would be a football fan (or any fan of sport for that matter) that would disagree with the decision to do so.
The powers that be put a very optimistic date of April 3rd for the resumption, but the facts are we probably won’t see a game until late May at the earliest, as the country is currently in the Virus’ grip and new cases are not slowing down.
Spain and Italy now have the biggest death rate in the World now, even behind the origin country of COVID-19 China. Until recently no one could understand why these two European countries had it much worse.
That was until a trace of where the people from the worst hit areas had been, or had contact with someone that had been. The Champions League game at the San Siro was where most of the cases were traced from.
Fans of Atalanta and Valencia both congregated in the city before and after the game and were unwittingly infected. They took it home and the virus spread to friends and family.
The UK were very worried that we could follow suit, especially as the same week saw Madrid fans in Liverpool for their Champions League game.
We can only hope that they can get control and beat the virus quick, and that we do without the catastrophic death toll.
What does it mean for football? Well in the grand scale of things, football and sport in general are nothing when we see the devastation going in the country and the World. But as it has just been announced that the Leagues below the professional leagues are to finish immediately what will happen to the PL and EFL, plus the Women’s professional leagues?
The PL and FA originally said that due to the Euros being put off to next year, the season will be completed no matter what. But surely there has to be a cut off point. They were basing that on restarting on April 3rd, when the fact is it will be mid-May at the best.
You can’t have a season finishing in Mid-July or more than likely much later and new one starting straight away. Any delays to the start of next season will just knock on into next season.
I know this will throw up a whole load of issues, who is promoted and relegated and do you just hand the title to Liverpool? All unfair as there are quite a few games to go. But can you just terminate the season and start next season with the same Leagues?
There are of course the massive financial implications with sponsorships and clubs that are reliant on the gate receipts to survive. Wigan Athletic will suffer too, as we also reply on the match day takings to lessen our debt, we will have to wait and see what our new owners will do.
Some teams could well go bust and we hope the PL especially with its billions of pounds step in to make sure that doesn’t happen. If the right decision is made and all seasons are ended now, let’s just hope all clubs make it through OK, but the points deduction still stands for Bolton.
All our thoughts go out to the families that are suffering from this terrible pandemic and we all hope for a quick end to it and life can then start to get back to some sort of normality.
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