The seemingly unstoppable will to play professional football again in England gained a further shot in the arm on Thursday after the latest meeting to decide when and how.
The Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said Thursday’s meeting with the Football Association, Premier League and English Football League had “progressed plans” towards a June return.
“We all agreed that we will only go ahead if it is safe to do so and the health and welfare of players, coaches and staff comes first,” said Dowden, as reported by BBC Sport.
“It is now up to the football authorities to agree and finalise the detail of their plans, and there is combined goodwill to achieve this for their fans, the football community and the nation as a whole.
“The government and our medical experts will continue to offer guidance and support.”
He added that plans to return should “ensure finances from the game’s resumption supports the wider football family”
There is still so much to consider ahead of a return to actual playing, with training set to be the first test of attempting social distancing in this environment. It seems rather bizarre to me that training will take place observing social distancing only for, presumably, matches to take place as normal, with all the close contact that entails.
Dowden also said that any return should “include widening access for fans to view live coverage”. That says to me that a lot, perhaps all, of these games are going to be shown on either TV, streamed on the internet or both. The government have already spoken about a return of football hopefully being a big boost to the nation’s morale as they desperately try to balance an economic return to work for much of the population as well as looking to stop the masses going nuts because of social distancing.
“We all agreed that we will only go ahead if it is safe to do so and the health and welfare of players, coaches and staff comes first,” said Dowden.
“It is now up to the football authorities to agree and finalise the detail of their plans, and there is combined goodwill to achieve this for their fans, the football community and the nation as a whole.
“The government and our medical experts will continue to offer guidance and support.”
With the Bundesliga re-starting this weekend, all eyes are on how that pans out in Germany. The nightmare scenario for those driving this is what will happen if, once it re-starts, it has to stop again due to another spike in cases of COVID-19.
There are also the issues of maybe not all players being willing, or able due to health concerns, to actually play. The bottom line for me is that this is still just way too soon but as the AC/DC song goes “Money Talks.”
OTBC
I would like to slam the door back in the face of the money obsessed premier league and
wait until it is way more suitable to even think about starting up again.