Liverpool poised, no matter what
Liverpool are still likely to be crowned Premier League champions, even if the coronavirus crisis causes the season to be abandoned amid mounting fears it would be impossible to complete it this summer.
As revealed by The Daily Telegraph last month, there is no regulation governing what happens if the 2019-20 campaign is curtailed. But a senior club executive yesterday revealed there was little opposition to award Jurgen Klopp’s men their first English title for 30 years following what threatened to be the longest suspension of the professional game since World War II.
That hiatus was otherwise in danger of plunging football in England into anarchy, with governing bodies and clubs desperately trying to devise ways to avoid the unprecedented meltdown that could ensue if government projections over the spread of the deadly disease proved correct.
On a day when more sport fell by the wayside, one senior figure at a Premier League team told The Telegraph: ‘‘There is so much more at stake. There is a focus on whether Liverpool will be champions, but that will be an irrelevance in the scheme of things. There is an intent we will recommence, but will that be possible?’’
The Premier League had yesterday devised a plan that would see the season finish on schedule provided it resumed on April 3. That was the date to which it, the English Football League and Football Association agreed to suspend the men’s and women’s professional game following crisis talks yesterday.
But with the virus forcing seven Premier League clubs yesterday to put players into isolation and the disease not forecast to peak until May or June, an April resumption appeared optimistic in the extreme. FA chairman Greg Clarke told Premier League clubs it was not ‘‘feasible’’ to expect their remaining matches to be played, while another senior figure told The Telegraph: ‘‘You tell me whether you think there’s the remotest possibility that anything in the science is going to tell us that it’s going to be safer to play on April 3 than now.’’
This summer’s European Championship is expected to be postponed at an emergency meeting of European football stakeholders tomorrow to allow the club season to continue into June and July – and potentially even beyond.
The same senior figure raised the prospect of the calendar being completely redrawn to dovetail with the next World Cup in Qatar, the switch of which to the winter of 2022 had already been accommodated by the game.
‘‘One scenario could be that you just work backwards from it and you say, ‘Why don’t we have a calendar season in 2022 and a calendar season in 2021 and we play the rest of this season in
October’?’’ he said.
But many players will be out of contract on June 30 and will also have lost match fitness, raising major questions about the integrity of competitions. Calling a halt to the season would be no less chaotic, with a title win for Liverpool the only issue on which clubs could end up agreeing.
That has resulted in discussions taking place inside some Premier League teams over proposals that could be put forward if the season could not be played to a conclusion.
One would be to void the season, but there is an acceptance that would cause many of its own problems with Liverpool just two games away from winning the title.
There would also be the issues of relegation and promotion from the Championship, together with
Champions League qualification, which carry huge financial implications for the clubs involved.
One proposal that could be made would be for the top two in the Championship, currently Leeds and West Brom, to be promoted and for 22 teams to compete in next season’s Premier League.
The EFL Cup would be postponed for one year to allow extra space in the fixture list and five clubs, instead of three, would be relegated at the end of the season.
One suggestion regarding Champions League qualification would be to allow the teams who qualified for this season’s tournament to keep their places next season and then enter any additional sides currently in qualification positions into an expanded qualifying phase. That would mean third-placed Leicester City going into a qualifying round for the Champions League, with Liverpool, Manchester City – subject to the Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing – Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur holding on to their places in the tournament.
But Manchester United, Wolves and Sheffield United, who are all above seventh-placed Spurs, would no doubt object.
Aston Villa chief executive Christian Purslow attended yesterday’s emergency Premier League meeting. Asked if he thought the current season will be completed, he replied: ‘‘We have no idea. Let’s hope so.’’
Failure to do so would jeopardise billions of pounds in TV money, with Premier League chief executive Richard Masters having already stressed to clubs in an email on Thursday night that "contractual commitments" needed to be taken into consideration.
As revealed by The Telegraph, it would also risk sending EFL clubs – who depend on match-day revenue – out of business. Telegraph Group