BLUEBIRDS TO PLAY BEHIND CLOSED DOORS?
EXACTLY when football returns remains up in the air, but when it does one thing seems certain – the matches will be played behind closed doors.
The idea of no fans being permitted inside Cardiff City Stadium or the Liberty to watch the Bluebirds and Swans as the Championship season reaches its climax is difficult to get your head around, but very soon the two Welsh clubs will need to plan the semantics of how it will actually work.
As with other clubs, Cardiff and Swansea are considering a May 16 return to training, with matches starting up again in early June and fixtures
concluded by July or August.
But what will ‘ghost games’ look like, are there disadvantages for the Welsh teams, who will actually be permitted to attend matches.
We take a look...
The state of play
Given we haven’t had any football for what seems an age, well March 7 to be precise when the Bluebirds won 2-0 at Barnsley and Swansea drew 0-0 at home with West Brom, it’s worth a quick reminder of the state of play.
Cardiff were beginning to build up a head of steam and, having punched below their weight this season, the feeling was they would finally have a proper crack at the play-offs in the closing nine games. The Barnsley win took them to within two points of Preston in sixth. There are five home games to come, against Leeds, Charlton, Blackburn, Derby and Hull, with trips to Preston, Bristol City, Fulham and Middlesbrough.
The injured duo of talisman Lee Tomlin and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing will be back for the first game, presumably still against Leeds, and that comes as a significant double boost.
The Swans have been the opposite of Cardiff, with many believing that under Steve Cooper they have punched above their weight to be commendably challenging for much of the campaign.
They had dipped to 11th by the time the enforced break came into play, but are themselves only three points off sixth spot and will still fancy their chances.
The Swans’ have four left at home, Luton, Sheffield Wednesday, Leeds and Bristol City, and five away at Middlesbrough, Millwall, Birmingham, Nottingham Forest and Reading.
The games at Cardiff City Stadium and the Liberty
The Bluebirds and Swans would each have to become accustomed to not having any fans inside the ground.
Cardiff’s average home gate this season has been 22,822, with Swansea’s average at 16,151. The atmosphere at each ground can be quite passionate, a sense of Wales v England, so the two clubs would be hit by losing their spectator base.
But who would actually be at the games?
Players
There are actually 20 players in a match-day squad, with two of them there as back-up to the final chosen 18 of starting XI and seven substitutes. That would remain the same, making 40 in total for the two sides involved.
Coaching staff
Cardiff boss Neil Harris would obviously still be in the dugout, supported by his number two Dave Livermore and highly-respected first-team coach James Rowberry. As well as that, the Bluebirds would require their goalkeeping coach, fitness coach, physios, masseurs and three or four match analysts. The number of support staff couldn’t really be cut, given the matches will be coming thick and fast and there are concerns about players picking up injuries after months of inaction.
The Swans would have similar numbers, with Steve Cooper supported by his deputy Mike Marsh, first-team coach Alan Tate and then the rest of the backroom team.
There are also, of course, kit-men required in the dressing room.
Medics
There needs to be a club doctor in attendance, as well as a small number of paramedics on standby. Matches at this level always have an ambulance in attendance too, just in case a player sustains a bad injury and has to be rushed to hospital.
Whether in the current crisis the authorities will permit ambulances to be used to those reasons is a matter for the Government to decide. It’s hard to see how that permission can be given, but it’s also hard to envisage matches going ahead without an ambulance.
Match-day officials
Obviously there will be the referee and his two linesmen, as per normal. But there will also have to be the fourth official, a Football League-appointed referee’s delegate and a club-appointed referee’s co-ordinator whose job it is to ensure everything runs smoothly for the officials on the day. In the Premier League, they will also need officials looking at VAR and goal-line technology.
The directors’ box
At Bluebirds and Swans matches, the number of guests in the Directors’ Lounge varies from game to game, but it can reach as many as 50. As well as board members, this figure includes club employees, sponsors and VIP guests, which can range from friends, to agents, to FA of Wales council members. These numbers will obviously need to be kept to a bare minimum, but the likes of chairman Mehmet Dalman, chief executive Ken Choo and director Steve Borley will be present for the Bluebirds, while for the Swans chairman Trevor Birch and playing legends Leon Britton and Alan Curtis, who work in an advisory capacity, will be amongst the first in the queue for their club. The opposition club will also have board members present.
The WAGS and agents
The wives and girlfriends of the players have special seats, and special after-match function rooms, at the stadia.
But it’s hard to see them being permitted to attend behind-closed-doors matches, with only working personnel let inside. Agents can make more of a case for working at games, given they are directly representing the business interests of players, but their attendance would need to be governed by Football League and Premier League guidelines.
Stewards
There are at least three stewards placed outside each entrance with the responsibility of searching supporters and bags taken inside, plus a presence in every area of the ground to assist fans, or deal with any incidents that may arise. Those numbers won’t be required, of course, but there will still need to be some element of security around the tunnel area, as well as inside the ground to ensure those attending are at least two metres apart. Car park stewards will also be required, plus a need for back-up to police outside the ground to ensure supporters don’t congregate.
The media
After playing personnel, this is where the biggest numbers come in. The plan is for matches to be shown as they happen on television, although the detail of how this happens remains to be seen.
For a full match on Sky, there can be up to 60 people who need accreditation, ranging from the match commentator to technicians working in the lorries outside and including riggers, electricians, producers, and sound engineers.
For a match shown on the red button, the numbers are vastly reduced with around four camera positions that will need to be manned by one person per camera.
There are also various radio outlets, local and national, which range from hospital radio to Radio Five. Plus Opta Stats staff and, of course, the written media.
Wales Online attend every Bluebirds or Swans game, home and away, which provides the bulk of the words written about the action taking place. But there are also a small number of freelances providing more limited reports for the London-based newspapers, while Cardiff and Swansea have their own internal media teams.
There will also need to be limited numbers allocated to members of the visiting media, written and broadcast. With games needing to be shown as they happen to season-ticket holders, they could be streamed on the Cardiff and Swansea channels.
Others
Presumably the games need to be treated like any other, so individuals will have to work the electronic scoreboards and big screen. A handful of electricians, maintenance workers and ground staff will also need to be on hand with their tools, cutters, rollers and pitchforks. With the transfer window approaching for the 20-21 season, the odd scout will also probably be in attendance.
Certainly Joe Rodon has suitors in the Premier League, and potential buyers will wish to continue to run the rule over him in competitive football.
Catering staff to provide food and individuals running the advertising boards will also be present.
The atmosphere
It will be a little spooky, like a training ground match, yet with everything at stake. Players will certainly need to watch their language as every word will probably be picked up by the TV microphones.
There have been examples of matches, as recently as Manchester United and Wolves in Europe as the coronavirus situation worsened. But never before on a scale like this where every match is played out in front of no fans and is meaningful.
Players’ attitude
We won’t know what this will be like until the matches actually commence. Cardiff and Swansea each stage behind -closed-doors training games, but rarely these days are other clubs drafted in to provide the opposition. On the rare occasions that they are, the matches take place at the clubs’ training bases, as opposed to Cardiff City Stadium or the Liberty.
So, actually playing in front of empty stands will be a new thing and it’s hard to say who will cope well, who won’t.
But someone like Callum Paterson, for example, is a scrapper and will roll up his sleeves whatever the circumstances.
He certainly won’t need 20,000-plus fans willing him on to give absolutely everything to the cause, it’s in his nature anyway.
Those kind of individuals at the two clubs will be required every bit as much as the flair we’ll see from the likes of Lee Tomlin and Andre Ayew.
The rule changes
FIFA are discussing emergency legislation to enable the season to finish with minimum disruption.
So, for example, they are talking of permitting five substitutes per game, as opposed to three, to reduce the likelihood of fatigue and the risk to injuries.
Their chief medical officer is also talking of banning spitting, for fear it could spread coronavirus. So you might even see players yellow-carded for doing so. CONCLUSION None of the numbers can be nailed down precisely and the authorities will need to offer some struct guidelines, but there will still be a significant number of working personnel present at behind closed doors matches.
Swansea have a lot of young players who clearly have talent and away from the pressure situation of large crowds, that natural ability could come to the fore.
Cardiff have a big squad and with the intensity of so many matches crammed into such a short space of time, that will be a big advantage for Harris’ side. There were teams with a lot of momentum, like Leeds, Fulham, Forest, who will suddenly lose that.
It’s up to the Welsh clubs to capitalise upon the situation and the Bluebirds, because of that squad depth, look handily placed to do so.
But the truth is these is uncharted territory and, crowd or no crowd, matches could still be decided by the whim of a referee and his decision making.
Does the fact Cardiff have five home games left, as opposed to four for Swansea, really matter given there will be no fans present anyway?
Will some sides across the Championship react better to the situation than others? Harris and Cooper, who are each meticulous in their preparation, might have an advantage, say, over Marcelo Bielsa at Leeds.
These are just some of the may imponderables which makes it impossible to predict with any certainty what will happen, until we actually start seeing what the new normal to finish 2019-20 actually looks like.