Patience required to see seasons through in sport
WITH the proviso that we shouldn’t even be talking about sport at a time like this, the fact is that life will go on after the Covid-19 pandemic comes under control. And it will, probably some time next year when a vaccine is found and manufactured in sufficient quantities to save those members of the human race who could face death from it – which is everybody, as no one is immune.
So when they take their minds off the virus, everyone I know is talking about the mundane and silly stuff, namely when will rugby union and rugby league, football, racing and other sports resume. Oh, and who should get the various titles, as if any sane person really cares.
I mean, come on people, this is a world emergency the like of which none of us under 65 can really remember – the last time the end of the world as we know it was a real possibility was the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, and we will never know just how close we came to nuclear Armageddon.
This time we are in trouble as a species and everything else is secondary. Still, sport does matter and there needs to be some planning ahead for its resumption. The best option I have seen so far is the plan advanced by the PRO14 administrators who have suspended their season and say they will only resume when four conditions are met.
If you’ve not seen them, then they are as follows: “That the Public Health Authorities cease to prohibit the resumption of sport and group training; that travel restrictions between our territories are lifted; that no forced isolation or quarantine orders are in force when visiting our territories; that player welfare is safeguarded, including requirement for a suitable pre-recommencement training period, to be established in conjunction with the high-performance personnel at our participating unions and teams.”
That’s the sensible way ahead for all professional sports, frankly, and it encourages me to put forward an idea for rugby and football – let us not cancel season 2019-20, let’s start again from where we left off and postpone season 20-21 instead.
The clue is in the way we refer to seasons – it will still be 2020 when sport starts again, and we can get season 20-21 started as soon as possible afterwards. That will probably mean no close season, or a very truncated one, and in football, transfer windows would be adjusted accordingly. In rugby and football and all other professional sports, current contracts due to expire at the end of the season must be automatically extended to the end of the season whenever that happens.
Think about it. What sport needs to do is to borrow time. It’s what Boris The Ditherer eventually realised he had to do – delay the spread of
What sport needs to do is to borrow time
3. Who won Euro 1992 despite not qualifying for the tournament?
4. Footballer Graeme Le Saux is from which Channel Island?
5. Which golf term means a score of two under par at a particular hole?
6. Men’s singles were played at Wimbledon from 1877, how many years later were women’s singles events introduced? a) 7, b) 14, c) 21 7. What number do you get if you multiply the highest three-dart checkout and the number worn by Wolves goalkeeper Rui Patricio?