Ways To End The Season Fairly

Come on the Tykes!

 

Their league is a different format to most in Europe though as they split after 30 games (they've played 29 so far) and the Top 6 then play one another twice in post-season playoffs to determine the Champions.

All they've really done for this season is just revert to a normal league system and declared Club Brugge the winners as they were 15 points clear. They were only 1 game shy of playing a whole regular season. I think if our league system worked in the same way, there would be little argument from anyone about doing the same thing.

It is also being claimed that Belgian football authorities have been floating the idea of restructuring the leagues for a number of years and have had broad support for the idea in then past so will use this as an opportunity to do so, thus reducing any ill-feeling around relegation and promotion. The biggest losers are Charleroi and Antwerp who lose out on a CL spot with one game to go and were only 1-2 points back from Gent who are second.

Their decision seems to have more caveats to it that mean it is not really relatable to most other European leagues.

 

It’s been regularly said over the years that there is so much money in football one day it’s going to implode. I think this could be it, I love it when the **** hits the fan.

 

But will large clumps of it hit us?

 

Unfortunately yes I'm afraid, it's one thing carrying on as a business with no ongoing revenue but another thing altogether when you have to pay a chunk of already spent revenue back.

 

Rugby championship has been concluded too, with current league positions standing and promotion and relegation decided on that basis. I sense that either us or Villa are going to be mighty pissed off by a similar decision given that we have not all played the same number of games. If it is on current standings or points per game, we will escape, just. Would be quite amusing if villa reaching the league cup final effectively relegated them

 

Who would win if us and Villa played a one off relegation showdown at an empty neutral venue?

 

Its high time the premier league began it's own online production company or JV'd with someone like Amazon and stopped going through all these TV companies anyway

I suspect the threat of that will bring the TV companies to the table

 

How are the TV companies losing money? Can they show a massive fall off in subscriptions and/or advertising? Aren't they saving on the "match day payments"?

Genuine question as I'm not clear as to why the EPL teams should pay as they are the ones losing revenue from games not being played.

 

I think sky are allowing subscribers to pause sports subscription , but you point is essentially spot on, in fact I would bet that sky / amazon / Netflix / Disney tv are doing a roaring trade at that moment

 

The Athletic claiming an ‘exclusive’ that PL bosses and club chairmen are increasingly of the opinion that they have a narrowing set of options available and ‘are fearful they have nowhere left to turn’ to salvage the season.

One option apparently on the table is finishing the season in China.

Crazy.

 

You sure it wasn't posted on April 1st?

 

You sound like you’d be surprised that this is an idea the PL would come up with...

 

somebody needs to play this at the next PL bosses meeting

 

The Athletic aren't saying the Premier League are considering the China suggestion, only that it was put forward by representatives of one of the clubs. Given that Wolves and Southampton are owned by Chinese interests, it doesn't take a great deal of nous to figure out where that suggestion originated and why the particular club were so keen to get the season played out at all costs. It's also clear from the report that it has been, or will be, laughed off the table.

Having been a subscriber to The Athletic for years, to follow the NFL, I'm satisfied that if they report it, it's pretty much correct.

 

UEFA has told clubs to finish their seasons or they'll lose European competition spots:

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...clusion-if-seasons-abandoned-prematurely-uefa

 

I can't wait for Minsk v Bruges in the 20 leg final.

 

Idiots, these competitions are the least important of all. As I have said before, cancel all European competitions until all leagues are back to normal. This will free up dates for all leagues to try and complete this season and have a full "normal" season for 20/21.

 

As with everyone in football its all about the money

 

Morons. That’s just about the most unhelpful thing the UEFA could do at this time.

 

i think European clubs should tell them to **** off and if they try it they will setup their own competition , would imagine UEFA would hold out for less than 10 mins

 

So what will uefa do if say Spain, England and Germany don’t finish their leagues? Refuse entry to Barca, Liverpool, Man City etc? Talk about cutting your nose of to spite your face.

 

I wonder if UEFA could be making these ‘threats’ because they will claim they postponed the Euro’s with the reasoning being that clubs were to finish their leagues with that newly created window of time/opportunity.

I just think any club, football authority or media company that raises the threat of legal action or other punishments will be doing so in extremely bad taste and poor judgment. They will be walking a tight-rope of poor PR.

 

Never going to happen. Like with most things UEFA do, all mouth and no trousers.

Wouldn't be surprised if we find out that UEFA only get a slice of TV money pie if the season's completed.

 

Burnley are one of the better run clubs and had £40m in the bank with no debt and only £19m owed to other clubs for players bought.

Compare that to us with no cash but £111m of debt and £52m owed to other clubs for players bought.

On the face of it Burnley could use that cash to make up for the revenue shortfall but we couldn't unless our owners put in funds.

Hopefully a compromise like the one suggested below will mean we won't have problems (apart from relying on staying up-which won't be a problem for Burnley this season)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/s...-season-price-not-demanding-compensation.html

 

Giving tv companies something extra is the most obvious solution

As for the losses, PL clubs will have few problems restructuring debts - as soon as footie restarts the gravy flows again - provided no one is ****ing around trying to fit this season into Q3

 

It’s not that’s easy to restructure your debts when you are already spending more than you’re earning and have no idea if your future income will be slashed by 95% in 4 months, 16 months or 28 months.

 

This is more likely to be the case if your debt is to third parties not the owners. As i have a bit of time on my hands i looked at the last set of accounts -for 2019-filed by the others at the bottom with us.

Norwich and Villa came up, so their accounts are for their season in the Championship.

Norwich. £20m overdraft and £12m owed to other clubs for player purchases

Villa. No debt . Their loss of £111m !! was met by their owner injecting £225m in new Capital and interest free loans.

Bmuff. £100m owed to their owner and is interest free with another £81m owed to other clubs for player purchases. (NB their wages bill £110m v ours of £85m). The owner injected another £30m last season to cover their losses.

West Ham. £113m owed to their owners (interest paid on some) with £21m of external debt and £87m owed to other clubs

BHA- No external debt-£227m owed to their owner which is unsecured and interest free. Tony Bloom injected another £50m last season.

Compare that to us with £111m of external debt and £52m owed to other clubs. No money either loaned to the club or injected by way of capital by the owners at this point (they had previously lent £25m but this was repaid last year, i calculate)

 

Yes so we are in a far worse position as the debt is outside the ownership structure. Those like AV and Muff don’t really care what they spend as the owner can just lend more.