QPR FURY AT JUNE 20 RESTART BOMBSHELL
LEE HOOS was enjoying the late evening sunshine in his back garden in deepest Hampshire on Sunday evening when the phone rang.
It was another Championship chief executive.
“Have you seen our schedule?” “What schedule?” exclaimed Hoos. As he quickly consulted the inbox on his phone, there it was in a stark bulletin from the English Football League.
The Championship would be starting again on June 20, just under three weeks away, with the play-off final on or around July 30.
Some 108 matches to be fitted into a packed schedule plus the play-offs.
It is not that QPR chief executive Hoos and his club were not expecting the call for a restart soon. But the bombshell manner in which it was dropped has left Rangers fuming.
Hoos said: “I was absolutely stunned when I read what was being proposed. They had given us 40 minutes notice before it was released. The lack of consultation with the clubs has been outrageous. It was just dropped on us.
“One extra week is at the very least necessary for Championship clubs.
“Everyone wants to play. They say we are making a fuss about injuries, but do we want our most valuable assets sitting around? Of course not.
“If they are injured in this period, with the close-season gap being very probably a short one, they’ll probably be injured for the start of next season.
“For a club like ours that could put us on our knees. The sports scientists say three weeks is too short a period. We will get injuries.
“An extra week’s training, even if it means taking the league into the first and second weeks in August, what would be the problem?
“If this is the kind of attitude we are getting from the EFL, then I might just join those who want to call it off!”
Hoos is also outraged at the lack of planning from the EFL about setting up stadiums for games behind closed doors, travelling to matches, and about hotels.
He said: “We need to provide safe stadiums. This has not been talked about. We’ll need security personnel. How many press will we allow in? These are core requirements.
“Is it best for teams to travel by train or coach? And hotels will need to be deep cleaned and disinfected. None of these issues have been discussed.
“In Germany they laid down the guidelines weeks before they started to play. They made plans.
“But what do we need for Championship matches? Haven’t a clue. We have not been told.”
Although the EFL have stated that the dates are only provisional, and need to be rubber-stamped at next Monday’s meeting, it is almost certain they will be given the green light.
“The EFL needs a reboot,” said Hoos. “To do something that it has never done before – planning. Right now the system is not working.”