The not-too-distant future...
Friday 20th March 2020
In your Across the Leagues email today:
- Dates are good news...
- 2019/20 aiming for completion...
- The situation in Europe...
The not-too-distant future...
On any normal week of the season, our Friday email would be 100% focused on Stats Picks for the weekend games.
But of course, this is certainly not a ‘normal’ week. There are no games right now. The coronavirus outbreak is affecting all areas of life, across the world.
We should take positives where we can find them. Thursday’s joint-announcement from the Premier League & Football League suggests that the current 2019/20 season will be completed if at all possible:
“We are united in our commitment to finding ways of resuming the 2019/20 football season and ensuring all domestic and European club league and cup matches are played as soon as it is safe and possible to do so.
We have collectively supported UEFA in postponing EURO 2020 to create space in the calendar to ensure domestic and European club league and cup matches have an increased opportunity to be played and, in doing so, maintain the integrity of each competition.
The FA’s Rules and Regulations state that "the season shall terminate not later than the 1 June" and "each competition shall, within the limit laid down by The FA, determine the length of its own playing season".
However, The FA’s Board has agreed for this limit to be extended indefinitely for the 2019/20 season in relation to Professional Football.
Additionally, we have collectively agreed that the professional game in England will be further postponed until no earlier than 30 April.”
I’m taking that as a positive. There are dates mentioned in there. It’s something on the calendar to work towards: football pencilled in for the not-too-distant future.
In Europe...
The above statement refers to the English Premier League, Championship, League One & League Two.
In regard to the other leagues covered on your Across the Leagues stats website…
In Germany, we’re still waiting for an official announcement on the 2019/20 Bundesliga campaign. Like the Premier League, there are still 9 rounds of games to be completed.
In Italy, where the COVID-19 impact has been particularly devastating and continues to be so, football is understandably not high on the overall agenda. As it stands, the Serie A could be (attempted to be) completed in May & June. But that’s very much a wait and see situation.
Spain has been hard-hit, too. Again, the tentative plan appears to be to get La Liga players back on the pitch for a May & June finish.
In the Scottish Premiership, we’re still awaiting an official announcement, too.
Overall, all the leagues we cover appear to be aiming to get the 2019/20 season finished this spring & summer. That’s good news. We’ll take what we can get. There are reasons to be optimistic, even if any dates and announcements do have an asterix by them right now.
‘Of all the unimportant things’...
The coronavirus situation is out of our hands. These are tough times.
Of course, sport takes a backseat to the unfolding global crisis. But as the classic line goes:
‘Out of all the unimportant things, football is the most important’...
The football will be back. When it does, we’ll be all set for action. The stats on your members-only Across the Leagues website are all up-to-date. We’ll be taking a little dive into them next week, highlighting some trends & patterns, and things to help us out when we get back into the game.
Until then, take care.
Best wishes,
Shaun Humphris
Across the Leagues |
