Despite the global pandemic that has left some sports leagues and clubs paralyzed, the Premier League table leaders look set to bring home the title.
Even if the season is discontinued due to the global pandemic, there are no set of laws that cover Liverpool’s current situation. Additionally, there was little opposition from other clubs when it came to awarding the club their first English trophy in 30 years.
Currently, the club leads the league table by 25 points. Two more wins would secure them the title. Because of these matter-of-facts, no club has come forward to dispute Liverpool’s claim to the trophy. However, this should not distract from the real issue: that the COVID-19 pandemic could potentially derail English football. Governing bodies and authorities are devising plans and tactics to avoid the catastrophic meltdown should the projections about the virus become a reality.
On a day when sports events and leagues postponed or cancelled their seasons and/or games altogether, a senior executive from a Premier League club said, ‘There is so much more at stake. There is a focus on whether Liverpool will be champions, but that will be an irrelevance in the scheme of things. There is an intent we will recommence, but will that be possible?’. Among those events that didn’t continue were the London Marathon, the Masters, Wales’s Six Nations match with Scotland, England’s cricket tour of Sri Lanka, the start of the Formula One season, and the Giro d’Italia.
According to Premier League executives, they’ve hatched a plan that will ensure that the current season finishes on time so long as it is resumed on April 3. Why April 3? This was the date that the English Football League and the Football Association agreed to suspend all men’s and women’s professional games. However, after the coronavirus pandemic caused a few Premier League clubs to quarantine some of their players, and with the situation not looking to ease up until May or June, a resumption in April seems highly unlikely.
Executives and prominent figures in football, including FA chairman Greg Clarke, agreed with Premier League clubs when they said that it’s not practical for them to continue playing their matches. Another unnamed senior figure said, ‘You tell me whether you think there’s the remotest possibility that anything in the science is going to tell us that it’s going to be safer to play on April 3 than now’.
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With an emergency meeting set to take place to discuss the upcoming European Championships, it’s very likely that these tournaments will also be suspended in order to make way for the club seasons to continue into possibly June and July or possibly even beyond. A senior figure also suggested that the calendar be rescheduled to coincide with the next World Cup which will be held in Qatar. ‘One scenario could be that you just work backwards from it and you say, “Why don’t we have a calendar season in 2022 and a calendar season in 2021 and we play the rest of this season in October?”’, he said. One consequence that this could have on the players is that their fitness will have dropped by the time the matches take place.
Asking football executives to bring the Premier League season to a halt is just as problematic as the other solutions. For one, with Liverpool so close to winning the title, it would seem unwise and impractical to do so. Besides this, there is also the problem of promotion from and relegation to the Championship, Champions and Europa League qualifications, all of which have huge financial implications.
There is one proposal that the current top two teams in the Championship (West Brom and Leeds) will be promoted to the Premier League. Following this, there will be 22 teams participating in the next season. The EFL Cup would also be postponed giving the increased number of clubs time to complete their matches. All in all, five clubs would be relegated at the end of that season. Another suggestion for the Champions League qualification is to allow clubs that currently hold a spot in the tournament to keep their places until next season. Any club that is also in a position to qualify for the tournament will be added into an expanded qualifying phase.
Aston Villa’s chief executive Christian Purslow commented on whether or not the current season could still be completed. ‘We have no idea. Let’s hope so’, he said. If the current season doesn’t conclude, this could mean a loss of return with regards to earnings from television viewers.