Scrap talk

Premier League support to void the 2019/20 season grows

AS PREMIER LEAGUE officials pored over documents when the coronavirus crisis first began to spread, a simple but stark reality became apparent: there was absolutely no provision for a situation like this. It was never considered that football could just stop.

That vacuum has started up intense discussion about what can be done next, with all manner of solutions encouraged, but one of the more drastic suggestions has picked up momentum in the last few days.

That is to void the season.

It was an idea that two clubs intimated support for on the night the Premier League was finally postponed on March 12, with West Ham United’s Karren Brady then revealing her backing last week.

The backlash to that saw the proposal temporarily shelved, but the ongoing uncertainty has seen some figures come back to it.

At least four clubs now favour it, with Harry Kane then adding his backing on Sunday.

Figures like Kane speaking out has fostered a feeling the momentum behind it could grow, especially the longer the postponement goes on without any solution.

But does that actually mean voiding the season is even possible? What are the technicalities and merits to the idea? What would it actually entail, and what would it mean?

Well, it would mean exactly what the word does: voided. The 2019-20 season would be expunged.

“It won’t have happened,” one figure centrally involved in discussions told The Independent.

That would mean the “2020-21” season would really just be the 2019-20 season restarted, making the entire enterprise somewhat farcical when eight months of it have already been played.

All of the results and records of that period would meanwhile be wiped, and it’s a wonder whether Kane would feel the same if he was told all of his goals wouldn’t count.

Most pressingly, though, the broadcasters would have legal and contractual right to demand money back. This is the source of the very real concerns that the Premier League clubs would collectively lose up to £1.2 billion (RM6.3b) if the season is voided.

This is why the vast majority of the clubs are determined – some sources would say “desperate” – to complete the campaign.

All of the current top-half teams are in that camp, even if some of their supporters are not. That in itself touches on the deeper complexity of this problem.

For all the fixation on Liverpool “getting their title”, the real debate is lower down the table. There lies the greatest argument against voiding the season, because of the multitude of complications it would

cause.

“It really would be the worst of all solutions,” one source says. “If it came to it, no one in their right mind would vote against Liverpool being champions, but the bottom would be a mess.

“It would actually be more justifiable to void the season at the top than the bottom.”

It’s also where it has the potential to get political. Four bottom-half clubs are said to be in favour of voiding the season because they feel that the money guaranteed from staying in the Premier League for another campaign would be greater than any money they have to give back to broadcasters.

This is what the entire debate will really come down to: what clubs will be able to count up to. It really is about the hard sums. Money will be the determining factor everywhere.

– The

Independent