Extraordinary Times

Corona Virus 19 looks set to scupper what remains of the football season of 2019-20 season across Europe.  National leagues everywhere have been halted at a crucial and deciding phase and UEFA’s flagship Champions League has been suspended indefinitely. All of this has led to great confusion about what happens not only to this year’s competitions but also next season’s. It is to be hoped that UEFA offer some firm leadership and guidelines as to what is to happen in each country playing under its auspices. If it is left to national associations to find and apply national solutions it could at best be messy and at worst acrimonious.

Celtic FC is currently 13 points clear in the SPFL with just 8 games remaining and denying them the title would seem harsh indeed as it would have taken a major collapse in the remaining games to see them lose the title. However others quite rightly point out that Hearts, Hamilton, Ross County and even St Mirren could all still be relegated and to simply say to Hearts ‘sorry, you’re going down,’ is equally unfair. So what is to be done?

If, as scientists are predicting, Covid 19 doesn’t peak until the summer in the UK, then the chances of any football taking place remain very low. A vaccine is said to be a year away so we can’t look for medical science to solve this conundrum any time soon. Thus we should be thinking very carefully about solutions which will not only solve this season’s issues but also steady the ship for what needs to happen for next season. We live amid great uncertainty at the moment and if there is to be no football played again this season then we need to look to start season 2020-21 and base our solutions around restarting our game in the autumn. In Scotland, issues of who will be champions/promoted and who will be relegated from the country’s four divisions remain the main problems to be solved. There is an ancillary problem of how certain clubs survive without the match day income they rely on so much but from a footballing perspective we need to know who will finish where in the Scottish leagues.

One possible solution would be to declare the leagues as finishing in their current positions and go from there. In three of our four divisions there is a runaway leader who is almost certain to emerge as champions. (Celtic 13 points lead in SPFL, Dundee United 14 points clear in Championship and Cove Rangers 13 points clear in League 2) Only in League one is there a tight struggle with just two points between Raith Rovers and Falkirk. If we declare the current leaders of the four leagues as Champions then it would at least have some sporting integrity.

As far as relegation goes, we don’t relegate anyone but promote two teams into each league. Thus the SPFL would rise to 14 teams with Dundee United and Inverness joining the top league. This would mean clubs could play each other twice leading to a truncated 26 game campaign next season which would be a one off but would at least allow fixtures to be fitted into a reduced time-frame in 2020-21.  Of course the knock on effect of no relegation means two clubs from the non-league set up would join the league. This could be for a year or two until the extreme circumstances pass and reconstruction can take place again and we can get back to the status quo.

As far as the Scottish cup goes, there are only three games left to be played and it wouldn’t be impossible to play these games next season, even as a curtain raiser to the new campaign. We are in unchartered waters and the suggestions above as far from perfect. We can’t engineer a situation where everyone is happy but we do have to do our best for the majority.

We await firm directives from FIFA and UEFA and there will no doubt be implications not only for domestic leagues but for Euro 2020 which may well become Euro 2021. It would help UEFA if domestic leagues were decided one way or another in order to decide who goes into the European competitions for season 2020-21. It would be ideal if we managed to finish this season but if not then the ideas above will just be one voice among many offering solutions. There is no ideal solution and we will have to accept that things won’t return to normal in a manner which suits all clubs or fans.

These are extraordinary times and they demand extraordinary solutions. Hopefully we have the vision and leadership needed to come through this period successfully. Whatever happens we should face it with magnanimity and humility. People are dying in this pandemic and football should bow its head and recognise that it isn’t so important against that background.