Pointless to hide self-interest behind ‘sporting integrity’ that no longer exists for League One
CLUB CHAIRMEN’S ARGUMENT AGAINST FINISHING SEASON NOW IS MISLEADING
It’s time to pick up the pieces and look after the players, the future of club staff and the future of our football clubs.
SPORTING integrity. It’s become the buzz phrase when it comes to Coventry City’s promotion hopes.
“We must protect the sporting integrity of the competition,” chairman have yelled at the prospect of the season ending without the final games being played – but what on earth does it mean?
Ever-vocal Peterborough United chairman Darragh Macanthony has been just one of a list of League One bosses who has used the phrase over the past seven days in an attempt to make the idea of completing the season using a points-per-game mechanism look unfair on just about everyone.
He claimed that a points-per-game scenario was “letting a computer decide our footballing fate.”
And while I welcome his argument that we are yet to investigate the potential financial implication of not finishing the season, a very good argument, his points-per-game observation is, of course, very misleading.
Points-per-game is simply ending the season as it stands and awarding points to teams with games-in-hand based on the average number of points they have won in previous games this season.
It’s pretty simple and, unlike other mechanisms that could be used, compensates teams relatively fairly based on how good they are. There is no computer simulation involved at all.
But, let’s explore his sporting integrity fears.
By definition, sporting integrity concerns the moral or ethical aspect of sport. It refers to those involved in sport acting in a way that is consistent with their sporting values and principles.
In this very specific case, as League One continues to try and get it’s act together, it means ensuring that the final table is decided with each club competing on a fair and level field.
Sadly, settling the table on pointsper-game does not do that.
Wycombe, for example, will slide up the table thanks to their game-inhand whereas actually playing that game would see them take on Coventry – and call me confident but I don’t see them taking many points away from that affair.
So are they right to point fingers at the EFL and chairman Rick Parry for threatening the sporting integrity of the competition? No, this is football and sadly for those chairman sport isn’t a scientific experiment carried out in a laboratory. Jamie Carragher made some stellar points last week. He recalled
Thierry Henry making a shock return to fitness for Arsenal just in time to face Liverpool after their closest rivals had enjoyed playing the Gunners in the weeks prior without having to handle one of the top-flight’s greatest ever forwards.
Sometimes in sport, you’re just unlucky – and Coventry fans know all about that.
And you could argue that the Sky Blues have already suffered immense bad luck during this pandemic.
Mark Robins’ side were in full flow during February and looked like they were only going to strengthen their lead at the top of the table as March progressed. Let’s say we return to action next month, Coventry arrive back at St Andrew’s rusty after having limited time to get back on the training field and suffer a string of defeats that pull the play-off pack back into title contention.
Or let’s say that a player falls ill with coronavirus, something that I believe should be football’s biggest fear right now, and a team are forced to play on with their star man made to undertake a 14-day quarantine period, or worse.
Does that respect the sporting integrity of League One? No, of course, it doesn’t.
Don’t fall for the club owners who hide their own self-interest by using football’s buzz phrase of the moment. The sporting integrity of League One is long gone and left the moment the season was halted that Friday afternoon in March.
It’s no longer the time to bicker. It’s time to pick up the pieces and look after the players, the future of club staff and the future of our football clubs.