Football & Coronavirus [READ MOD NOTE IN FIRST POST - updated 06-05-20]

Chuck Noland

niallo27 wrote: »

Stop changing the subject, genuine question how do you see football coming back before a vaccine. I'd like to know your opinion.

I’m not changing the subject I posted on your admission of a “daft” statement and I’ve asked you to clarify it a bit. It wasn’t daft it was a complete fabrication you can admit that much at least so we can move no??

niallo27

Cantona's Collars wrote: »

Why did you stick so rigidly to your guns if you knew it was daft? All you had to do from the outset was to admit that instead of posting stuff that Gemma O Doherty would be proud of.
People have been banned from other threads for posting such stuff.

The data I provided was for another poster who said large numbers of younger people were dying, I stated the fact that 99.66% of people who died were over 45 and had underlying conditions. This is fact, you can not dispute this.

niallo27

Chuck Noland wrote: »

I don’t know. I’m not a doctor and I don’t have experience in any sector related to disease prevention. The experts are still coming to terms with this virus. Untill it’s fully understood I can’t see any safe way for sport to restart in any capacity. People I know in pharma on lines say their factory’s research department are flat out working on cures/antivirus/antibiotics

I couldn’t even guess a time line tho

Fair enough, how do you feel about the Italians and germans going back playing football, do you think they have maybe looked into the risks.

Cantona's Collars

niallo27 wrote: »

The data I provided was for another poster who said large numbers of younger people were dying, I stated the fact that 99.66% of people who dies were over 45 and had underlying conditions. This is fact, you can not dispute this.

Yet you just said it was daft????

niallo27

Cantona's Collars wrote: »

Yet you just said it was daft????

No that was a previous point that 99% of young and fit people would probably feel no side affects.

El Gato De Negocios

niallo27 wrote: »

Ok my statement was over the top, I'll admit that and retract it. I still think the chances of a professional footballer actually getting the virus with routine testing in the first place and then getting seriously ill are so minuscule that it is worth getting back playing football. How are Italy and Germany contemplating going back in the next few months if its such a risk. Why are arsenal back training in small groups if its such a risk.

Fair play for holding your hands up.

Germany have had approximately the same amount of cases as the UK but less than a quarter of the deaths and they have a much larger population. Bear in mind the UK deaths are only hospital deaths. Considering how badly nursing homes here have been ravaged by it then its fairly likely that UK nursing homes would have at a minimum followed a similar trend so their death rate is likely significantly higher than the figures reported. The Germans are ultra efficient at most things and from what I've seen proactively tackled the spread of the virus from the get to where as the UK have been broadly limp wristed about it, certainly at the beginning.

Italy, they may be talking about it but imo thats all it is, talk. Cant see them resuming anything anytime soon, the country is in the toilet.

France are the country that the UK is running parallel with. Virtually everything is identical, same population, more or less same number of cases and deaths, and they have cancelled Ligue 1.

Germany are very much the exception to the rule when it comes home countries of the "big leagues" and should not be used as a barometer for how things will play out in the UK, they are poles apart with how the virus has been handled.

Cantona's Collars

Eventually this evening, the UK announced that they are going to count victims outside of hospital deaths. How can they be truly trusted with figures?

niallo27

Statutory Ape wrote: »

Fair play for holding your hands up.

Germany have had approximately the same amount of cases as the UK but less than a quarter of the deaths and they have a much larger population. Bear in mind the UK deaths are only hospital deaths. Considering how badly nursing homes here have been ravaged by it then its fairly likely that UK nursing homes would have at a minimum followed a similar trend so their death rate is likely significantly higher than the figures reported. The Germans are ultra efficient at most things and from what I've seen proactively tackled the spread of the virus from the get to where as the UK have been broadly limp wristed about it, certainly at the beginning.

Italy, they may be talking about it but imo thats all it is, talk. Cant see them resuming anything anytime soon, the country is in the toilet.

France are the country that the UK is running parallel with. Virtually everything is identical, same population, more or less same number of cases and deaths, and they have cancelled Ligue 1.

Germany are very much the exception to the rule when it comes home countries of the "big leagues" and should not be used as a barometer for how things will play out in the UK, they are poles apart with how the virus has been handled.

All good points, but Germany is enforcing strict social distancing. Why do they feel its ok for footballers to break these rules, I know they have less cases but the risk is still there.

Cantona's Collars

niallo27 wrote: »

No that was a previous point that 99% of young and fit people would probably feel no side affects.

So it's not daft,is it made up? I can't seem to find that 99% figure.
Perhaps a link might help me.

Chuck Noland

niallo27 wrote: »

Fair enough, how do you feel about the Italians and germans going back playing football, do you think they have maybe looked into the risks.

How can anyone look into the risks associated with a virus they don’t fully understand? I don’t think any of those county’s should be looking at sport in the summer months

wadacrack

Perspective needed in this thread . Their is currently a professional league playing atm. Belarussian Football league. Swiss, Czech, Polish and Swedish leagues all set to return in May/June.

Germany likely to return in May/June. Only 3 to 4 leagues have voided until September.

Football leagues will be played before a vaccine. Risks/ benefits will have to weighed up. Sports will adapt to live with the virus in time. Its been only 6 weeks or so since everything came to a sudden half. We are in the middle of a peak it will be easier in time.

I expect the Premier League to finish behind closed doors in June all reports suggest it will. English Government are indicating this will be the case.

niallo27

Cantona's Collars wrote: »

So it's not daft,is it made up? I can't seem to find that 99% figure.
Perhaps a link might help me.

It's in my original post, 25 of the 6689 deaths were people under 45 with no underlying conditions.

niallo27

Chuck Noland wrote: »

How can anyone look into the risks associated with a virus they don’t fully understand? I don’t think any of those county’s should be looking at sport in the summer months

By looking at the data they have already. This is why they are asking the over 70s to cocoon in the country.

Chuck Noland

Cantona's Collars wrote: »

So it's not daft,is it made up? I can't seem to find that 99% figure.
Perhaps a link might help me.

Daft is a term you use describe an idea. He claimed “ Listen if you are young and fit, this thing will hardly bother you, this cant be news to you.” making out like it was a fact and he was surprised the poster wasn’t aware of this! I have asked him to confirm it was infact a complete fabrication but he refuses to do so and continues to try and change the topic

Chuck Noland

niallo27 wrote: »

By looking at the data they have already. This is why they are asking the over 70s to cocoon in the country.

You mean the data that changes on a Dailey basis of virus that is mutating and new strains are forming as we speak? I think the severity is lost on you

niallo27

Chuck Noland wrote: »

You mean the data that changes on a Dailey basis of virus that is mutating and new strains are forming as we speak? I think the severity is lost on you

Hang on you said that you are not an expert but now you are telling me how its mutating. The data has been very consistent since the start in every country. You are just being obtuse now on purpose if you dont accept this. Just on the mutating all previous versions of this virus has mutated to be weaker so probability says this will do the same.

Chuck Noland

niallo27 wrote: »

Hang on you said that you are not an expert but now you are telling me how its mutating. The data has been very consistent since the start in every country. You are just being obtuse now on purpose if you dont accept this. Just on the mutating all previous versions of this virus has mutated to be weaker so probability says this will do the same.

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/coronavirus-mutated-10-types-killer-21940674.amp

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/16/opinion/coronavirus-mutations-vaccine-covid.html


https://www.google.ie/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/coronavirus-has-mutated-into-more-than-30-strains-say-scientists-in-china-11976380


I’ve made it clear I’m no expert but I can certainly read.

The mutation of the virus stands to my point on understanding the virus which In turn reflects issues in finding a cure.

Fitz*

If the tests that are going to be used by the players and clubs are privately sourced, it puts to bed the 'taking tests away from frontline workers' debate.

https://twitter.com/skysports_bryan/status/1255607375601508352?s=19

Liam O

Chuck Noland wrote: »

Daft is a term you use describe an idea. He claimed “ Listen if you are young and fit, this thing will hardly bother you, this cant be news to you.” making out like it was a fact and he was surprised the poster wasn’t aware of this! I have asked him to confirm it was infact a complete fabrication but he refuses to do so and continues to try and change the topic

A certain group in this thread have been soapboxing and baiting with comments such as "United fans not wanting the league to finish" or "everyone just hates Liverpool and that's why they don't want football back". Thread was closed last time when I called it out as delusion at the highest level and yet that has continued despite the supposed problem posters being threadbanned.

But I'm sure he and 6 will be back with a new irrelevant statement (almost put statistic but putting what they say in this thread in that bracket is giving too much credit) to try and rule up people looking at this through a lens of common sense and not just "let's put everyone at risk because sure this virus that has shut down THE WORLD is not really that big a deal. It's infuriating.

hetuzozaho

I'd be delighted to see some football back, any sport really, would break up the lockdown.

Not being a Liverpool fan though I don't really get too excited about starting up and finishing the current season as it was kind of over already! Wonder will that be taken into account, as presumably for the majority it's more exciting to start again?

Although maybe people are just focussed on having something back, anything at this stage ha

joe_99

FitzShane wrote: »

If the tests that are going to be used by the players and clubs are privately sourced, it puts to bed the 'taking tests away from frontline workers' debate.

https://twitter.com/skysports_bryan/status/1255607375601508352?s=19

Exactly. In Ireland we don't have enough people to test. 4000 extra tests a day are available but GPs don't have enough patients to put forward. Its the same in many countries across the EU.

Testing footballers will have zero impact on preventing people needing tests getting them.

Fitz*

joe_99 wrote: »

Exactly. In Ireland we don't have enough people to test. 4000 extra tests a day are available but GPs don't have enough patients to put forward. Its the same in many countries across the EU.

Testing footballers will have zero impact on preventing people needing tests getting them.

I understand the concerns of people who were worried that tests would be given to footballers and staff around football clubs when the frontline workers and residential population needed them more. And I wholeheartedly would agree too. Those frontline workers and residential population need the tests more, along with the people showing symptoms and waiting in the queue for tests to be undertaken.

From what I can gather, the UK issue with testing is not the number of tests available, but the logistics around the tests being completed. There is not enough testing centres yet with the online booking system for tests running out of slots to undertake a test. This will be ramped up, like it was in Ireland, to get more tests accessible to the public, and to the NHS. I am open to correction here, if there is someone more clued in with the UK testing methods. But I do expect the testing to improve over the next couple of weeks in the UK either way.

But if this is true, and that the PL are outsourcing the testing kits themselves and won't have a drain on the NHS or other services, then that starts to negate a huge worry around the testing of players before training and playing games.

I have seen it reported that for every one kit bought by Serie A clubs for their players, that they must donate 5 to the health services. I would both assume and hope that a similar policy is undertaken in the Premier League.

Chuck Noland

joe_99 wrote: »

Exactly. In Ireland we don't have enough people to test. 4000 extra tests a day are available but GPs don't have enough patients to put forward. Its the same in many countries across the EU.

What are you basing this on? I’ve heard the opposite, granted by word of mouth, from staff in hospitals here

joe_99

Chuck Noland wrote: »

What are you basing this on? I’ve heard the opposite, granted but word of mouth, from staff in hospitals here

Dr. Cillian De Gascun has said our capacity is 10k tests a day currently. We did 41k tests last week. Less than 6k a day.

Arghus

FitzShane wrote: »

If the tests that are going to be used by the players and clubs are privately sourced, it puts to bed the 'taking tests away from frontline workers' debate.

https://twitter.com/skysports_bryan/status/1255607375601508352?s=19

It doesn't really.

If people who work in essential services and on the front line etc can't get tested and meanwhile there are PL league clubs availing of privately sourced testing, there will be questions asked about how come private business can deliver extra testing capacity and why isn't being availed to help more essential workers.

It'll be a huge shitstorm of negative PR. To think otherwise is to be naive.

Arghus

joe_99 wrote: »

Exactly. In Ireland we don't have enough people to test. 4000 extra tests a day are available but GPs don't have enough patients to put forward. Its the same in many countries across the EU.

Testing footballers will have zero impact on preventing people needing tests getting them.

That's because of the case definition, which was changed yesterday.

You couldn't get tested unless you displayed two or more of the symptoms, hence why only a certain amount of people qualified and why it looks like we don't have enough people who need a test. That is not the case, we didn't have enough people who met the testing criteria.

That will change now that the criteria for testing has been broadened to people with just one symptom. There will be a lot more people being tested going forward.

Cantona's Collars

FitzShane wrote: »

That's more of a worry to all of humanity than just football.

As an aside, I wonder what his self isolation methods were like? Is it possible that he re-contracted it?

Just saw your reply now, seems like they did continuous testing and still found traces which have lessened but are still there. No symptoms now but even after a month the virus is still present.

joe_99

Arghus wrote: »

It doesn't really.

If people who work in essential services and on the front line etc can't get tested and meanwhile there are PL league clubs availing of privately sourced testing, there will be questions asked about how come private business can deliver extra testing capacity and why isn't being availed to help more essential workers.

It'll be a huge shitstorm of negative PR. To think otherwise is to be naive.

If it gets the UK govt to sort out their sorry response to this crisis get more testing done then they can thank the premier League.

Arghus

niallo27 wrote: »

All good points, but Germany is enforcing strict social distancing. Why do they feel its ok for footballers to break these rules, I know they have less cases but the risk is still there.

You talk as if the league in Germany is bound to go ahead. They are just talking about it, that's all. Nothing has been confirmed and it could just as easily not happen.

That's how it is everywhere. These are just proposals, completely dependent on outside factors.

Arghus

joe_99 wrote: »

If it gets the UK govt to sort out their sorry response to this crisis get more testing done then they can thank the premier League.

Okay, I've nothing to say to something so inane as this.

Fitz*

Arghus wrote: »

It doesn't really.

If people who work in essential services and on the front line etc can't get tested and meanwhile there are PL league clubs availing of privately sourced testing, there will be questions asked about how come private business can deliver extra testing capacity and why isn't being availed to help more essential workers.

It'll be a huge shitstorm of negative PR. To think otherwise is to be naive.

That's a question for the UK health minister Matt Hancock, and not a football question.

If the premier League are able to source tests, and undertake them without having any drain on healthcare workers etc, then what does that say about the UK government. They should be doing the same thing. As the original source said, the premier League wouldn't be taking tests away from the pool of tests that would be used by the NHS for the public and NHS workers, they would be their own privately sourced tests.

Having a drain on public resources was a major sticking point of the premier League returning and this solution is negating that worry. They won't be using the public testing kits. How the UK government distribute and use these tests is not a Premier League issue, it's a government one.

Chuck Noland

joe_99 wrote: »

Dr. Cillian De Gascun has said our capacity is 10k tests a day currently. We did 41k tests last week. Less than 6k a day.

I missed that... where did he say that?
Was that still under the 2 symptom criteria or the 1 symptom?

Loafing Oaf

Arghus wrote: »

That's because of the case definition, which was changed yesterday.

You couldn't get tested unless you displayed two or more of the symptoms, hence why only a certain amount of people qualified and why it looks like we don't have enough people who need a test. That is not the case, we didn't have enough people who met the testing criteria.

That will change now that the criteria for testing has been broadened to people with just one symptom. There will be a lot more people being tested going forward.

Is the gameplan not ultimately to do some form of randomized testing? Not sure how that will work, can't really stop people on the street any more though...

joe_99

Cantona's Collars wrote: »

Just saw your reply now, seems like they did continuous testing and still found traces which have lessened but are still there. No symptoms now but even after a month the virus is still present.

Could be related to this from South Korea

https://www.newsweek.com/south-korea-experts-say-recovered-coronavirus-patients-retested-positive-because-dead-virus-parts-1500998

Arghus

FitzShane wrote: »

That's a question for the UK health minister Matt Hancock, and not a football question.

If the premier League are able to source tests, and undertake them without having any drain on healthcare workers etc, then what does that say about the UK government. They should be doing the same thing. As the original source said, the premier League wouldn't be taking tests away from the pool of tests that would be used by the NHS for the public and NHS workers, they would be their own privately sourced tests.

Sure, it'll be a failing on the part of the UK government primarily, but that won't change the fact that it'll become a huge story about how come NHS workers can't get tested, but 100k a week Premier League footballer can.

It'll be the UK government's fault, but it won't be spun that way. I can almost write the headlines myself.

And if there's anything Boris and co love, it's deflecting blame. They won't be slow on turning the public's heat away from themselves and onto the private businesses providing testing.

"We are working to get up to full testing capacity to help protect our front line workers, we have been liaising with private businesses to see if they can use some of their resources in order to help in this national effort."

Arghus

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Is the gameplan not ultimately to do some form of randomized testing? Not sure how that will work, can't really stop people on the street any more though...

They are nowhere near even talking about randomised testing.

Fitz*

Arghus wrote: »

Sure, it'll be a failing on the part of the UK government primarily, but that won't change the fact that it'll become a huge story about how come NHS workers can't get tested, but 100k a week Premier League footballer can.

It'll be the UK government's fault, but it won't be spun that way. I can almost write the headlines myself.

And if there's anything Boris and co love, it's deflecting blame. They won't be slow on turning the public's heat away from themselves and onto the private businesses providing testing.

"We are working to get up to full testing capacity to help protect our front line workers, we have been liaising with private businesses to see if they can use some of their resources in order to help in this national effort."

You are correct here. But in my opinion, PR and government spin shouldn't stop football players being tested and games going ahead.

In theory this is still 4-6 weeks away anyways so you would hope that the UK have got their sh1t together regarding testing facilities and the backlog of waiting times by then. Everyone has to get tested eventually and the source of this test is the only debate - private or public. I guess you could compare it to your health system here in normal life and why do private patients get seen before public patients.

If the backlog is cleared and the testing process is quicker, then there shouldn't be much public objections to Premier League footballers getting tests. Some of the first people in the UK to get tests were players and coaches associated with Premier League clubs and there wasn't much outcry then. Times have changed since then though, no doubt.

gstack166

Just award Liverpool the title & get the season cancelled.
Players will get injured, and have to go to hospital. The player and his entourage of club medical staff are then at risk of contracting the virus. Together with taking up valuable hospital time for treating an injury that could have been prevented.
This testing kits that the league are buying should be donated to care homes.

Thanx 4 The Fish

gstack166 wrote: »

Just award Liverpool the title & get the season cancelled.
Players will get injured, and have to go to hospital. The player and his entourage of club medical staff are then at risk of contracting the virus. Together with taking up valuable hospital time for treating an injury that could have been prevented.
This testing kits that the league are buying should be donated to care homes.

Nursing homes are already being tested but that is to be increased now with army planned to visit them with mobile testing facilities. At the moment they are already tested however the test is to see if any resident who is symptomatic has it and if they do, then all residents are isolated in the home.

https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/coronavirus/armed-forces-to-test-care-home-staff-for-covid-19-using-mobile-units-27-04-2020/

Arghus

FitzShane wrote: »

You are correct here. But in my opinion, PR and government spin shouldn't stop football players being tested and games going ahead.

In theory this is still 4-6 weeks away anyways so you would hope that the UK have got their sh1t together regarding testing facilities and the backlog of waiting times by then. Everyone has to get tested eventually and the source of this test is the only debate - private or public. I guess you could compare it to your health system here in normal life and why do private patients get seen before public patients.

If the backlog is cleared and the testing process is quicker, then there shouldn't be much public objections to Premier League footballers getting tests. Some of the first people in the UK to get tests were players and coaches associated with Premier League clubs and there wasn't much outcry then. Times have changed since then though, no doubt.

PR has already stopped some clubs from availing from the goverment's furlough scheme, which they were technically only using as intended. Other companies - which also have billionaire owners - and will cost the scheme a lot more were never once mentioned in the media.

Government spin singled out premier league footballers, alone, as the only group of high earning individuals who should take a pay-cut. Nobody else was even mentioned.

Neither of things should have happened, but, it doesn't change the fact that they did.

Fair enough, if testing is working gangbusters in the UK in 4-6 weeks, then it probably, by itself, won't be too much of media issue with which to bash the premier league et all. But, really, that's expecting a lot from a government response in the UK that's been pretty haphazard up to this point.

Chuck Noland

Thanx 4 The Fish wrote: »

Nursing homes are already being tested but that is to be increased now with army planned to visit them with mobile testing facilities. At the moment they are already tested however the test is to see if any resident who is symptomatic has it and if they do, then all residents are isolated in the home.

https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/coronavirus/armed-forces-to-test-care-home-staff-for-covid-19-using-mobile-units-27-04-2020/

The UK is in big trouble now tho with the second highest number of Deaths in Europe after combining all deaths including nursing homes.. the last few weeks of numbers that previous decisions were based on were skewed and they cannot expect previous plans to be accurate given the new numbers and will need to review all previous data

gstack166

https://twitter.com/mailsport/status/1255640521348964355?s=21

Disgusting if true. Shows they don’t give 2 ****s about fans, players or clubs, it’s all about the money in their own pockets, nobody else’s. Can see a lot of people turning their backs on the game in the near future. They’re handling it all very badly.

Richard Hillman

I think we know their attitude by now, especially after the City Arsenal game was called off and they were still going to persist with fully attended games that weekend without Arsenal.

There is nobody at the Premier League that will make a decision. I think after this there needs to be a serious review of the roles at the Premier League. The U.S sports have commissioners. They are well paid, they are unpopular with fans but they put themselves out there and make decisions.

There's nobody like that at the Premier League. They had Richard Scudamore for years who was basically in the right place at the right time and lived off the fact that the TV Money was exploding. He had absolutely zip achievements in his role.

The need somebody that the clubs elect to run the league, make unpopular decisions and who's decision making isn't entirely based around "what will the media say"

ERG89

gstack166 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/mailsport/status/1255640521348964355?s=21

Disgusting if true. Shows they don’t give 2 ****s about fans, players or clubs, it’s all about the money in their own pockets, nobody else’s. Can see a lot of people turning their backs on the game in the near future. They’re handling it all very badly.

Lol, above anything else in football the Premier League has always been about money, its a product sold to fans. That's why you have so many clubs that are foreign owned & the money the league has is what attracts players and coaches. Its also why you have the Saudi's sneaking in at the moment as the gate is open for some good sportswashing that the league loves.

Richard Hillman

In reference to when leagues will start again, I think basically the larger the country the harder it will be to get the game back going.

As a Cricket fan I have been looking specifically at Cricketing Countries to see if we might get any action this summer. The Caribbean islands are in pretty good shape, if they wanted to move all international cricket over to the islands.

There could be a case that the big football leagues may play their games abroad in less affected countries. You could end up with a 20 team league splitting to 5 groups of 4 teams, they go off to Dubai, Hong Kong etc then play each other over the space of 2-3 weeks, then fly in another group of 4 teams to play out their games. Then split the group of teams up and go off to Australia/New Zealand and so on.

I can't see elite level football being off for more than a few months.

~Rebel~

gstack166 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/mailsport/status/1255640521348964355?s=21

Disgusting if true. Shows they don’t give 2 ****s about fans, players or clubs, it’s all about the money in their own pockets, nobody else’s. Can see a lot of people turning their backs on the game in the near future. They’re handling it all very badly.

Eh? Of course they were going to still have games even if there were positive tests from time to time... like, surely that’s inherently obvious in the concept of football returning? If they needed to shut it down after one positive test then it wouldn’t be starting back up in the first place. Say Sterling’s partner goes to tesco and catches it from a shelf stocker, brings it back and gives it to him. If that’s all it took to end the whole shebang, it would be a non-starter. They have to have layers upon layers of redundancies and testing to ensure that any spread from carriers is mitigated against.

Rayne Wooney

gstack166 wrote: »

Just award Liverpool the title & get the season cancelled.
Players will get injured, and have to go to hospital. The player and his entourage of club medical staff are then at risk of contracting the virus. Together with taking up valuable hospital time for treating an injury that could have been prevented.
This testing kits that the league are buying should be donated to care homes.

They won’t give out the title with a quarter of the games to play, you either win it in the 38 games or it’s off surely.

Interesting City are 40/1 to win the league, Leicester were 5000/1 for all the impossible dreamers

~Rebel~

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

They won’t give out the title with a quarter of the games to play, you either win it in the 38 games or it’s off surely.

I daresay it’s far likelier they’re given it than not, regardless what happens from here.

Rayne Wooney

~Rebel~ wrote: »

I daresay it’s far likelier they’re given it than not, regardless what happens from here.

And why? It makes no sense

~Rebel~

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

And why? It makes no sense

If they don’t finish the league I reckon they’ll grab certainty wherever they can find it to make the whole outcome feel at least somewhat worthwhile. They’ve made no secret that they’re desperate to provide something as close to completion as they can get, and nothing accomplishes that like naming a champion - and it just so happens there’s no easier decision this year than that, given the gap.

Especially in contrast to the decision on European spots, which they’ll also have to award based on sporting merit as best they can. With everything else in mind, and the weighing of pros and cons they’ll do, I’ve literally no doubt that Liverpool will be named champions. It’s an easy win for them, can’t really be met by any credible complaint, and provides a nice positive and headline grabbing distraction in the face of what will otherwise be really bad news (that they can’t complete the season).