Hull in a handcart as SPFL’s weird month gets worse
INTERLOPERS to a particularly weird kind of party, Hull City yesterday managed to stumble centre-stage into the oddness of Scottish football.
As the authorities came down on Hearts and told the Gorgie club that they were forbidden from training, Hull were still able to go through their paces in the capital as part of their own pre-season preparations. Perhaps the Tynecastle side could have listed themselves as trialists as they looked to get their boots back on and get round the obstructively officious call that stopped them training. Or never allowed them to start training, depending on what your take on this matter is.
Given that local five-a-side complexes have been up and running for the last few weeks, one can empathise with the irritation that has been felt by Hearts since the announcement on Thursday night.
If the last few months have felt faintly surreal in terms of some of the decisions taken – or not taken – events over the last few weeks have fairly cranked things up a notch.
In amongst Aberdeen players out on the lash in the midst of a global pandemic, Boli Bolingoli’s quickie to Spain and Leigh Griffiths’ inability to keep his head down, there has been a madness in some of the decision-making processes from all quarters.
The commands from the Joint Response Group seemed to be in keeping with some of the head-scratching calls that have gone on.
Hearts’ ban from training on Thursday night was bizarre in itself. The Championship side have hardly hidden the fact that they have been keen to get up and running. There has been no attempt to hide it from under the noses of the government or anyone else. Still, the jurisdiction that no-one outwith the top flight could train until August 24 meant that Robbie Neilson’s side were apparently in breach of protocol. The fact that they were undergoing a libel case to keep their status as a top-flight case only serves to highlight the circus of recent months.
Denying Hearts the opportunity to train seems absurd when other teams have been back for some weeks now. By all means be assured that all safety legislation is adhered to – reaffirm no jaunts on planes on days off, no postmatch bevvy sessions – and, if necessary, arrange for spot checks at training grounds to ensure that everything necessary is being done to keep the virus at bay.
That aside, the very fact that there was no legislation in place to deal with breaches of Covid restrictions before the season got underway was particularly myopic from both the SFA and the SPFL. Trying to shoehorn them in now retrospectively is difficult. That disciplinary proceedings will be brought against Aberdeen and Celtic for the behaviour of their players is inevitable but it ought to have been discussed with clubs when football was still in lockdown.
Aberdeen have confirmed that has been undermined by the infringements of the last 10 days.
Football came within a whisper of going back into cold storage at the start of this week. It will not take much to have the season put back into lockdown, which is a disaster for the game as a whole. There would be more than just a few clubs who would end up as collateral damage if that is the case. It is impossible to see how they would cope with another spell of no games and no income.
Reaffirming trust is the biggest challenge that lies ahead in the coming months.