Liverpool must be champions... voiding season is a foolish idea
FOR the first time in 30 years, Liverpool are the champions of England. We knew that already and it looks now as though the coronavirus has confirmed it before mathematics could. The idea that the season should be void is little more than a malign fantasy peddled by those trying to weaponise a pandemic to stop a rival team and its supporters claiming what is rightfully theirs.
The English Premier League and the Football League did the right thing, belatedly, on Friday morning when they suspended competition until at least the beginning of April but the hard part — the wrangling over who is entitled to what, legal actions, contractual disputes — still lies ahead.
The idea of a three-week delay to the football calendar is the definition of optimism, or self-delusion. Even though it is still hard for us to comprehend, it is much more likely, sadly, that the 2019-20 football season is already over, its drama truncated, its climax over before it began. They may not know it yet but we already have our winners and losers.
The idea that the season should be void is absurd. It is a solution driven almost solely by a gleeful desire to deprive Liverpool and their fans of a league title they have craved for 30 years. It should not even be considered as an option. It is not as if the season were in its infancy. It was three-quarters over anyway.
There may well be an asterisk in the history books next to Liverpool’s title win this season. That will be some consolation to those desperate to deprive them of their moment. Nor will their fans get to experience the explosion of joy they would have felt had their team confirmed their triumph on the pitch, perhaps by beating Everton at Goodison, which was due to happen tomorrow.
That does not change the fact that, not only are Liverpool 25 points clear at the top of the table, but also that the season is more than old enough for us to be able to say that the standings as they are now are legitimate indicators of merit. We have never been in a situation like this before but the solution is clear and obvious: if there is no resumption, the current positions should be frozen and declared as final.
It is not ideal. Nobody will pretend that it is. Some, particularly those fighting relegation, or teams like Manchester United, who were beginning to make a decent run on a place in the top four, may protest that it would be unfair. And they may be right. These are extraordinary times that have already delivered extreme measures. Freezing the standings now is the best of a list of imperfect outcomes.
If you want to search for precedent, look at Chile last year. The domestic season was still six games short of completion when the country was gripped by social unrest and mass demonstrations. When an attempt at resumption failed, Universidad Católica, who were leading their nearest rivals, Colo-Colo, by 13 points at the time of the suspension, were declared league winners. No teams were relegated to the Primera B.
So if there is no resumption, Liverpool must be declared champions. Manchester City, if their appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport succeeds, Leicester City and Chelsea will take up the remaining Champions League spots. Bournemouth, Aston Villa and Norwich will be relegated. Leeds will be promoted as champions from the Championship and West Brom will go up with them. And so on.
It is not that radical. It is a form of
force majeure. The circumstances are different but freezing results like this is hardly unprecedented. If a fight has gone more than four rounds and is ended by, say, a cut caused by an unintentional clash of heads, then a winner is declared by technical decision on the basis of the judges’ scorecards at that time. It is unsatisfactory, but it happens.
It is fortunate that in this season of all seasons, the Premier League should have runaway leaders. For all the half-hearted attempts to say Liverpool cannot now be named champions, everyone knows that Liverpool already are champions. In other years, the result might still be wide open at this stage. Not this time. It was over, bar the mathematics, long ago.
Other issues were more keenly fought. The battle to avoid relegation was desperately close. Aston Villa and Bournemouth, in particular, will feel they still had a decent chance of escaping the drop. If this is indeed the end of the season, it will be harsh on them and their fans but the axe has to fall somewhere and if there is no resumption, it will have fallen on them.
There have already been some suggestions that if there is no more play, there should be no relegation this season and the Premier League should be made up of 22 teams next season instead. It is a fudge based on financial compassion but it is a fudge nonetheless. It would be cleaner to adopt the same principle at the bottom as the top. Villa’s game in hand would not save them from the drop.
In conventional terms, in ordinary times, we would say it was not fair. But nothing about a virus that picks on the old and the infirm is fair, either. And these are not ordinary times. No one wanted it to end this way but it might just be time to get on with it and accept that sometimes, even in our sports-mad country, society has other priorities.