Well, well, well… fan DISGUST still holds strong in the boardroom, even if that location sits in Boston. Liverpool dropped a 180 at breakneck speed and have now decided that it’s probably not the best look to furlough part-time workers when you’re spending £310m on front office wages and bragging about £31m in profit.
I’d congratulate Liverpool on the pivot, but to be honest, it’s still shocking to me that a club with a marketing slogan of ‘This Means More’ would hoover up a government furlough within 16 seconds of it being announced. Someone laid out the counter to this point in the comments, namely that the football clubs have dropped £3b in tax, they should be able to draw from the fund. It’s a fair point, but only if you look at football as a normal business, which it is not.
Clubs are expected to behave ethically, to think of the community first, to lead from the front. There’s an unspoken contract between fans and owners. Namely, we don’t behave with our football teams like we do with normal products. If my car performed as badly as Arsenal have over the last decade, I’d have upgraded. Fans stick it out with the inflated prices and offer up unyielding support regardless of what goes on. The exchange is that we expect the clubs to behave well in the community, we hope our players donate to charity (which they do) and we look to them in times of need.
The credit you can give Liverpool is that they acted. It’s hard to admit you’re wrong, especially in a moment so loaded with bear traps.
My hope is that Arsenal hasn’t considered any other course of action. We have a big cash position, we’re run by people that do a lot for the community already, and our owner’s heir said he wanted to make the fans proud. I have a lot more faith in Arsenal’s conscience than I do in their ability to make us an elite outfit on the pitch. Time after time we over-deliver. Whether it’s help for explayers falling off the wagon, support for local hospitals, giving kids fun experiences at the stadium, or letting Bobby Pires use the gym… we’re always there for people. Let’s hope they hold strong.
It’s interesting reading up about the Barcelona debacle in a little more detail (The Athletic). Their directors immediately applied for the furlough, then the players stepped in and said that they’d pay for the non-sport staff for as long as needed. Led by Lio Messi, who was pissed that they went straight for the government option. Their staff count is huge, it sits at 1300. So good on him. The deeper worry for them is that their business model is very aggressively about putting player salaries first. They were on course to make a billion euros this year, now that’s dried up, they are in trouble. They pay out a staggering £9.8m, that’s about £190k a week! They had to borrow the entirety of the £105m for Griezmann, which they’ll need to shift this summer to make ends meet… good to know that even a club as elite as Barca can run into trouble. I mean, no good, but you get what I mean.
Problem for football is no one ever envisioned a disaster this all-encompassing. Same for most businesses. Good job there’s so many mega-rich owners ready to dip into their deep pockets to bail out the clubs, right?
In other news, PFA lead Gordon Taylor has said there’s no chance he’ll take a pay cut. I mean, he doesn’t have to, does he? Not like he’s out of work at the minute. Watching his behaviour is quite something. He’s myopic, seems to have little consideration for the culture is negotiating in, and he’s making his members look cold and greedy. Hard to really feel pangs of the proles when you’re rocking £2m a year, so it’s no surprise.
We need the players to lead. If Jordan Henderson is the anointed god of altruism, he should step up his action. He should reprimand the union, take a stand and shift the news cycle to golfers. This inaction is killing any goodwill people had post-Hancock. The players look like they’re locked in delaying tactics, which grates normal folk because most of us had no choice. We took the deal, ANY DEAL that was offered.
At least the United players are going to war. They’re donating to local trusts. Marcus Rashford is making personal donations. The club is doing the right thing on every level. Great to see.
Everyone else that can afford to do so should follow suit.
Right, that’s me done, see you in the comments. x
PedRo
“”””CG, the only thing that’ll fuck football is people stop watching it””””””
Which they will do. And have started to.
Who in the right mind or afford to pay £1000+ for a season ticket to watch VAR infected soccer anyway?
then go home on the packed subway, with people sneezing and coughing on you?
Might as well, save your cash and stay Covid19/20/21 etc* free.
TV companies will soon start using CGI to get the crowd atmosphere in.
*Chinese live wet markets still going on as we speak.
Pedro “Andy, realistically, herd immunity is where we’ll end up. There won’t be a vaccine any time soon and there’s only so long you can shut down the world.” Actually the basis of most vaccination programs is to ensure herd immunity. Herd immunity is not the reason why European and US societies struggles with the virus. It’s trying too hard to protect the economy at the expense of starting widespread restrictions. China1’s posts on le-grove were prescient on a massive scale. I hope he’s okay ‘cos he hasn’t posted here in a while. The likes of Marc have been proven… Read more »
Dissenter The likes of Marc were telling people not to panic or over react which many were – Un was claiming we were going to have troops on the streets enforcing a full lock down. If Sweden comes out of this with a similar fatality rate to other European countries a lot of people will ask why we fucked the economy for zero benefit. Only time will tell who was right and who was wrong on a lot of this and I for one will listen to the UK experts rather than anyone on a blog. What I find hard… Read more »
“Who in the right mind or afford to pay £1000+ for a season ticket to watch VAR infected soccer anyway?”
At a guess I’d say about 250,000 people a week on average – many more thousands pay less but it’s still a large outlay. Arsenal ST’s are the price they are because the club sells them at that rate – if the demand ever drops so will the price.
Almost everything is a commodity on one level or another.
“The maths are simple even for Joe public, tens of millions would have needed to get infected and hundreds of thousands die for that to be achieved.” Sorry but that’s not proven to be true at the moment – it might turn out to be that way but right now we don’t know because we don’t know how many people have actually had it. If 50,000,000 (unlikely but we have no idea until an immunity test is widely available) people have had it in the UK on top of published figures then all this is bollocks and fucking expensive bollocks… Read more »
I’m interested to see how Sweden get on, as they are not on lockdown and are following the advice of an epidemiologist.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-response-sweden-avoids-isolation-economic-ruin/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwi_pNz1hdnoAhX_RBUIHQjsDBAQFjABegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw2JMXwswBse0xKvG39NwaRN&cf=1
Pierre
The Swedish politicians are either going to be the biggest hero’s or villain’s going when this ends.
You still getting any golf in?
Marc
You did buy that Boris Johnson herd immunity line, hook-line-sinker…you almost took of his hands too. Boris only started backing off when the shi*hit the fan.
You had rolling arguments here with China1 as I recall.
Herd immunity is indeed a concept associated with vaccines – the idea of acquiring it through managed exposure to disease is a new one, and one that no-one with any common sense could support. Measles vaccination uptake needs to be around 95% to be effective, the more infectious the disease the higher the threshold has to be and COVID-19 appears to be very infectious. Imperial College so seem to be a big part of the Government advisory team, it was they who flagged up the actual consequences of the original approach quoting figures of 510,000 dead with no action or… Read more »
Dissenter
We have to achieve herd immunity other wise we’ll all be on lock down on and off – mostly on for over a year until a vaccine is found and mass produced.
No Western Economy can afford that and people won’t be able to handle let alone afford be shut up indefinitely. The idea of the lock down in the UK is to control the infection rate so those who are ill do not overrun the NHS.
You do understand that this virus is not going away it will no be with us for decades.
You’d like to think there would be a “ reckoning” for China in whatever capacity especially since the last few pandemics ,if I’m correct,have come from there.But going forward I’d be curious to know if better strategies from WHO & our govt( contingency planning)internally & our borders & insisting on closure of China’s borders ASAP.should all be thoroughly re-evaluated.
Uwot
It does make you wonder how European freedom on movement will come out of this when you hear stories about how the virus spread in Europe.
Andy “Herd immunity is indeed a concept associated with vaccines – the idea of acquiring it through managed exposure to disease is a new one, and one that no-one with any common sense could support. Measles vaccination uptake needs to be around 95% to be effective, the more infectious the disease the higher the threshold has to be and COVID-19 appears to be very infectious.’ Absolutely agree with that statement. it was was the misuse of herd immunity in the Boris theory that was wrong. The only way herd immunity works is if the virus is not highly mutable and… Read more »
Dissenter
Bringing how the virus might mutate into the conversation is pointless – in evolutionary terms it’s best for the virus to mutate to be less deadly, if it mutates into a strain with Small Pox like fatality rates of 30% it’d wipe itself out.
Marc The virus will be a threat this flue season, the summer micro rolling outbreaks] and next flu season. Viruses mutate all the time so it’s unlikely that one vaccine will be enough. The flu shot is reconstituted all the time to keep up with influenza virus that cause it. We have to get back to normal but no government will convince any free people to go back to work prematurely. Personally, I’m not going on any vacation that involves staying in a hotel room, taking a plane or cruise ship for a while. I am not going to any… Read more »
Marc “Bringing how the virus might mutate into the conversation is pointless ‘ That’a a 5-star misstatement from you. Mutation is always directed at survival. When viruses mutate they become more virulent and more contagious. When microbes mutate they become more resistant to treatment. “in evolutionary terms it’s best for the virus to mutate to be less deadly,” That’s a wrong, maybe you phrased it poorly. The covid-19 virus had to mutate the make the evolutionary leap from animal to humans successfully. It had to be the perfect setting because the wet markets in china have always been there, so… Read more »
Dissenter
The cold and flu viruses mutate faster than most but as I said if Covid 19 mutates to something with a lower fatality rate then it’s not an issue.
You’re talking about the western economies being shutdown for over 18 months – are you thinking about what you’re saying?
Thousands die from flu or flu complications every year – I don’t know anyone who loses their shit over that.
We cannot shut down the economy much longer as amiliion or more people will be jobless with few jobs available. Many companies already cannot met their sales on line as they cannot replenish their stock. Strange how Amazon can trade on while small retailers can’t? My son and his wife are back to work part time in Munich, Germany is starting to get going again while we dither. Small companies should start to go back to work and there should be a slow controlled shift with larger companies. Everyone over 60 can stay at home or local for a while… Read more »
The most likely reason this season will be completed if at all possible is that if it doesn’t the PL will have to pay the various broadcasting companies the best best part of a billion pounds Even Sky who have a cosy relationship with the PL are now adamant that if the season is not finished they will require there money back. It is possible that this will change football forever Match attendance could take a serious hit Broadcasting companies and sponsors may not be able or inclined to shell out huge amounts of cash I think there are big… Read more »
The UK strategy was patently wrong from the outset and was against all of the actions that had at that stage been proven effective in Asia. I hope there is an inquest because Boris Johnson has blood on his hands and his advisors also. In Singapore now we are seeing a spike largely because of Singaporean students arriving back from the UK, many of which seem to have the virus. The issue was always about avoiding a spike in people requiring treatment which a country’s healthcare system couldn’t deal with. Uk is now going in to that phase now and… Read more »
@Dissenter, they are as unpredictable as anything in nature but typically such viruses will mutate and become less serious. Their goal is to infect as many people as possible, and they won’t do that by killing the host.
Dissenter “That’a a 5-star misstatement from you. Mutation is always directed at survival. When viruses mutate they become more virulent and more contagious. ” Fuck me you are so wrong about that it’s scary. When the body dies so does the virus – for a virus to thrive it’s best bet is to have mild symptoms and not kill yhr host that means people infected carry on as normal infecting many more. A virus with a 100% mortality rate would burn itself out in no time. Pandemic’s happen when an existing virus jumps species into a new host that has… Read more »
Could someone else point out to Dissenter (he won’t believe me) that this isn’t a Hollywood film with a master viral villain.
moray
That’s interesting – I assume the students are from a mix of Universities over here?
@spanishdave, what we are seeing now is only partly the fault of the virus. Or rather the virus was the spark. The global economy is fucked after decades of being raped by banks. The global political infrastructure is a mess, global warming is maybe past the tipping point and we have ageing populations with huge debt. Many of the layoffs will actually be opportunistic and structural as companies take the chance to do what they should have been doing for a while now and leverage automation. This unfortunately means maybe a 20% of the population finding themselves unemployed without the… Read more »
@ Marc, they have returned from all over the world but from the data most affected seem to be those from the US and UK. I guess many study in and around London. Kids of colleagues are in UCL and Imperial.
” global warming is maybe past the tipping point ”
The tipping point was decades ago. Funny how Greta isn’t on the news anymore though!
“The tipping point was decades ago. Funny how Greta isn’t on the news anymore though!”
She was probably on one of these cruise ships heading home.
moray
I’m curious on how widespread this is / has been in the UK with people not that ill or even realising they’ve had it.
“She was probably on one of these cruise ships heading home.”
Prepare the torpedo’s
Fire one!
Because the media have been loving the scaremongering on a daily basis to get hits for advertisers people will be paranoid when they start getting back to business again. Confidence is low and as it is said companies will use the situation to slim down, particularly high street retailers. The tourist industry and sport will be hardest hit as it tends to go along hand to mouth. Small football clubs will go bust now, maybe it’s time to,allow them to be part time as in most European countries. The FA need to wake up, but they won’t as they are… Read more »
@ Marc, China data from a couple of weeks ago showed most incoming cases coming from Spain, Italy and then UK not far behind. I suspect it is pretty widespread in the UK. Just looking at the behaviours and evidence like that. The mortality rate is definitely lower than the figures and many will barely realise they were sick. The real concern is that it’s not proven yet that catching the virus even confers immunity. Some in Wuhan seem to have recurred. Or maybe it’s a new strain. Or maybe it sits in the body and recurs like malaria. This… Read more »
moray
Too many rumours and not enough scientific data on a lot of this and as dave said the media are loving the scare mongering they’re doing at the moment.
Some of the “experts” or people who are being asked to comment we’re getting on TV over here are borderline retards. Problem is the government can’t tell them to stop or it’ll be spun as them trying to silence the press or cover something up.
Sweden is twice the size of the UK with a population of 10,000,000.
It shouldn’t be difficult for a Swede to keep a two metre distance in all walks of life.
“It shouldn’t be difficult for a Swede to keep a two metre distance in all walks of life.”
I’m not so sure – some of their blondes would make me break the law.
Marc What other areas of expertise outside of football, wealth management, taxation, and infectious diseases do you excel in? As for global warming and tipping points……….there might be finally some good news coming from the US on that front. Trump has predictably fired the inspector general tasked with overseeing the disbursement of the $2 trillion covid19 stimulus package, and handed the job to the former EPA inspector general who used to lobby for the coal industry. What’s the good news you ask? Well, for the foreseeable future Trump will concentrate on stealing as much money from the stimulus package as… Read more »
Talking of reparations, native north and south americans should be compensated for smallpox by you know who, meanwhile Africans will be following that development keenly.
Im telling you this for free!
Tom first paragraph to Marc😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Marc
No golf ..
Have to make do with fine tuning my short game in the back garden ….not quite the same though.
Alf
What’s your rant today…. what grinds your gears….
Arsenal will need to 5hink outsid3 the box once this is all done to get revenue up.
Suggestions..
Hold regular concerts ?
Car boot sales
Religious gatherings
Sid
Native Americans and reparations?
They already got their casinos and ,even more importantly ,their tribal names on the US army helicopters.
Let’s not overdo it and spoil them now.
Pierre
Play the ball just outside the right foot feet close together and hold the club at the bottom of the grip.
Now play a short shot .
Mad not playing , as amateurs rarely play together as our shots don’t go straight!
Ok let’s have a laugh
A guy who has a yacht building company decides to work at home.
Now sails are going through the roof!
The problem with the UK government approch is that they didn’t take it seriously at all, even Boris was bragging about mixing with infected patients and shaking their hands Not all experts were in agreement of the herd immunity approach , in fact many did voice their concerns loud and clear As been said to make this approach work better you need to do massive testing of the population for starters. To compare this pandemic mortality rate with a flu outbreak or like Trump said motor accidents is very ill-advised and can really mislead people into sort of false security… Read more »
CG 14.14
Silvio Berlusconi predicted a similar scenario a couple of decades ago and was ridiculed. He is a TV (and football) man and saw the writing on the wall.
TomApril 8, 2020 16:29:25
Include 2 or so jeeps, a web server…..
Spanish Dave
“Mad not playing , as amateurs rarely play together as our shots don’t go straight!”
True.
The stupid thing is , I’m allowed to walk to town, go to work , walk around the shops, yet I’m not allowed to walk around a golf course in the middle of nowhere..
Neeg (Sergio knows.) There is no enjoyment or value going to the match anymore. The matchday experience has become a total chore. You have: VAR Over paid prima donnas wearing gloves who have refused a pay cut to keep their clubs afloat. And increased chances of getting deadly Corona on the train/bus home. Might as well stay at home, watch on your TV, save your cash and be safe. (Scientists have already stated that these soccer matches are BACTERIAL TIMEBOMBS!) I am gobsmacked, that all clubs but especially Arsenal are not laying people off already. Cant see the need of… Read more »
Pierre
I agree with your point to a degree but the problem isn’t you it’s the idiots who say “well if Pierre can play a round of golf we can invite a load of friends over and have a barbeque cause the suns shining”.
As so often we have to live according to those who are at the lowest rung of the intelligence ladder.
Dissenter won’t like this – it doesn’t feed into his doom scenario.
https://www.ft.com/content/5ff6469a-6dd8-11ea-89df-41bea055720b
moray
When you writer that viruses become less serious by mutation, are you referring solely the fatality rate?
If that’s your premise then I have no problems with that.
I was defining a seriousness with the propensity to have an incubation period long enough to keep the host alive to spread it before showing clinical symptoms. By that measure, Viral mutation increases the virulence, . That’s the point I was arguing.
*when you wrote
Dissenter
Do you mean virulence or contagiousness?
Marc
There’s no doomsday scenario.
Anyone vested with state authority is supposed to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
Boris Johnson using your hopscotch head-in-the-sand approach was slow to do everything. He was slow to close down mass events like Cheltenham. He dithered in shutting your schools down. He ended up doing it, only when it was 1-2 weeks past due. I understand he was mingling with the covid-19 sick… now he’s fighting for his life.
” now he’s fighting for his life.”
No he’s not (unless of course we’re being lied to and he’s about to kick the bucket) – he’s unwell, a big chunk of which will be down to him not taking it easy when he was diagnosed and continuing to work excessive hours.
It’s serious but you do move to “oh my god we’re all going to die” at the first opportunity.
Did you see the link I posted a few comments back?
Marc
Virulence – ability to infect or damage the host. it encompasses contagiousness. Ebola is more deadly but there has to be actual contact like people preparing their infected dead fro burial, hence it’s easier to contaain ebola.
I’m pretty sure the covid-19 didn’t start with a bat sneezing on an individual in Wuhan. It was probably by ingestion. That meant the virus had to successfully mutate from being spread by ingestion to contact and then later by aerosolized droplets.
Marc
Nope, he’s not fighting for his life. He’s just a vacation in intensive care. You do love being lied to by your government. Even his cabinet members can’t speak with your certainty.
The only reason why anyone is moved to intensive care is when the integrity of life is being threatened.
Marc
You’ve repeatedly called out the restrictions as an over-reaction to a threat that only kills the elderly, more so those with underlying medical problems.
Am I missing something here?
“Virulence – ability to infect or damage the host. it encompasses contagiousness”
No it doesn’t.
A virus can be both or one and not the other. A virus with very minor symptoms can be highly contagious.
Virulence definition – “the degree to which a disease or poison is dangerous or harmful and quick to have an effect ”
It is completely separate to contagiousness something you can’t seem to get your head round or accept.
Dissenter
In answer to your question
“Am I missing something here”
Yes a serious amount of grey matter between your ears
“You’ve repeatedly called out the restrictions as an over-reaction to a threat that only kills the elderly, more so those with underlying medical problems.
Am I missing something here?”
No and that remains the case for the vast majority of cases – especially when there are “experts” producing data saying that half the UK population could have been infected already.
There will always be exceptions and they are always tragic but that doesn’t make people change their behaviour en mass.
Buckagh
I can’t understand how people don’t / cant’ differentiate between caution / something being serious and complete hysteria.
Makes me wonder how these people actually survive on a daily basis.
Marc
“It is completely separate to contagiousness something you can’t seem to get your head round or accept.”
How is is going to infect the host?
That’s why you cannot the separate it from contagiousness. Why didn’t ypou explain why it’s separate
It’s not like you’re asking how is virulence different from infectivity or virulence vs pathogenicity
Are you using contagiousness in place of infectivity?
Marc
I’m not surprised that you latching unto a poster whose stock in trade in insults.
There’s a difference between telling people to prepare for the worst and going all out to do ALL that is necessary vs the drip-drip approach you were advocating for. You cheered Boris every time he resisted making the needed changes, only to still feel justified when he had no choice to make them in a belated manner.
San Francisco and California went all out for restrictions and are better off now. so much that they are returning equipment back to the federal government.
Dissenter Oh dear you’re really struggling with this. One is how likely a virus or disease is going to kill you should you get it. The other is how easily it passes from one individual to another. So a disease can be really hard to catch but 100% deadly if you do get it or really easy to catch but have a 1 in 10 million chance of killing you. Trying to tie both of those into it jumping from a “reservoir host” ie bats with Ebola and human to human transmission ie the flu once it’s made the jump… Read more »
Marc You do realize that you’re mistakenly [I hope] conflating contagiousness with infectivity? “Trying to tie both of those into it jumping from a “reservoir host” ie bats with Ebola and human to human transmission ie the flu once it’s made the jump is a different conversation.” No it’s not a different conversation. It is the one you are choosing not to engage in. I was writing about how viral mutation increases the capacity of the virus to dame the host and to also spread. . I even gave examples of how the first exposure of covid-19 was probably by… Read more »
CG
The introduction of ‘safe’ seating (and reduced prices) may save the day. A sense of belonging may come back.
I miss the atmosphere of Highbury even though it was nicknamed ‘the Library’.
“There’s a difference between telling people to prepare for the worst and going all out to do ALL that is necessary vs the drip-drip approach you were advocating for.” That’s not how governments work or can work. It is inevitably that the earth will be struck by a large asteroid or comet in the future that will cause damage ranging from catastrophic to wiping out all complex life on earth. What are the combined governments on earth doing to develop technology to protect us from this – fuck all and yet it’s a certainty. The reason nothings being done is… Read more »
Covid19 didnt jump from bat to human theres definitely an intermediary, for the record, but continue…
Dissenter
It is a different conversation because Covid 19 has already made that jump (you’re guess at ingestion by the way we don’t know) – that conversation needed to be had before it made the jump. Which would be a waste of time anyway because you stop one virus and you’ll just miss another.
Now it’s about how dangerous is it once you get it and how easily does it spread between people.
Why aren’t you screaming about Covid 25 – that’s going to make Covid 19 look like a picnic? It doesn’t exist yet but that’s what you’re arguing.
Sid
I’ve heard stories it’s the Pangolin but we just don’t know at the moment. Dissenter thinks because someone ate something he finds distasteful is behind all of this.
Sid
You can bet your bottom dollar that the Governments of the western world are already investigating. The CIA are working overtime.
Marc “A Governments job is not to save every life in every possible scenario it’s to access cost versus damage and probability.” I would put it this way A Governments jobs is to do everything possible to prepare for all foreseeable scenarios fathomable so as to save AS MANY lives as possible. The cost vs damage argument is moot. Youn can carefully do m=both so long as you prepare. China has opened Wuhan back for business because they did everything possible. Western societies were slower and not as decisive in acting so it’s going to take longer. That’s your cost… Read more »
Marc
So how did it jump from the pangolin to humans?
I wonder is man eat pangolin or fuc*ed pangolin.
Dissenter
It’s interesting that you take the Chinese governments word verbatim but dismiss what the UK government says out of hand.
Anyway I’m done with this for now – bats to cook, pangolins to eat and evil master plans to concoct.
“You can bet your bottom dollar that the Governments of the western world are already investigating. The CIA are working overtime.
Yea right, they are investigating. Just don’t hold your breath waiting for a report.
China will emerge from this stronger, the West will not.
In the US, we have already added trillions to our national debt trying to put band aids to stop a depression. The unemployment rate will be in double figures when it’s all over.
Dissenter
It’s most likely it was consumed but we don’t know – Hantavirus is spread when particles from rodent excrement is inhaled.
I don’t see how the way it jumped from X to human is relevant to where we are now. It’s relevant for the future to try and prevent future pandemics but right now it’s not a priority.
Do you all know how much meat there is on a bat – they are flying skeletons with a wrapping of skin. They ‘frenzy’ eat for about 4 – 6 hours – rest and then repeat. How much protein do they get from a midge.
Neeg “””The introduction of ‘safe’ seating (and reduced prices) may save the day. A sense of belonging may come back.”””” Doubt it. Still have silly kick off times Still have VAR. Football has basically eaten itself. It wont and cant be put back. Pierre and Spanish have the right idea- out in the fresh air playing golf. Corona free out there. Birdies and Bogeys beautiful. Just support your local amateur time and play some bridge, instead. These showponies, spivs and billionaire crooks don’t deserve your money no more. Their inertia in this crisis has been truly breathtaking. Whilst the docs,… Read more »
Marc
Cheers. Nice arguing with you as always. Stay safe and I pray Boris makes a full recovery.
Marc I’m not in the UK at the moment and now is not time for the blame game. there probably isn’t a country anywhere with the benefit of hindsight that wouldn’t treat this pandemic differently. China gave us a headstart somewhat belatedly but we wasted the time. What I can bé absolutely sure about is this is not just like a bout of flu, my wife is an intensive care nurse and we both had covid19 in early March we are middle aged, fit and healthy, It is a serious disease and I understand how it can be lethal if… Read more »
Pierre
Just catching up
Yep it make no sense like most things coming out of the London bubble.
CG.
Nice to hear from you, football is in for a shock, reality will now kick in.
We must all turn up for a game of golf someday.
Fuck football
When are the pubs gonna reopen
Dissenter
https://youtu.be/wvIu0jxmYK8
Johnson is on the mend
More to the point
How many pubs will never reopen
The cheek of Hancock to act magnanimous after a player movement to pool money together and donate funds. They were always going to help and regularly help in difficult times.
Easy for him to call out millionaires who a number of them come from poor or working class backgrounds.
Why doesn’t he call out people like Jim Ratcliffe, James Dyson, Phillip Green, Tim Martin, Richard Branson, Jacob Rees Moog, the Reuben brothers, Mike Ashley?
Hill wood
Very true sir
In Victoria a club bar called Greenwood’s open couple back, reall good to have a sports bar pub like that round here
Just before they were shut down they put prices up a quid to 6.50 a pint
Said slow business and other excuses .
Not sure owned by big chain but won’t happen again….I don’t think.
Shamevreallt good sports bar.
But maybe the gov will bring down the beer duty to stop that happening..
Dream
Very good call.
Sid
We will never know the truth… governments know very well what occurred .
But won’t divulge
The Vietnamese government “went to war” with the virus before it entered the country, they were prepared. There are currently 294 infected people and no reported virus related deaths from a population of 125 million. The majority of more recent infections have come from students returning from the UK. In the past couple of days only 1 newly infected has been reported. As stated previously, doubters of these figures emerging from a communist government can add their own. Recently someone died in HCMC, the neighbours claimed she had covid19 but the official line was that she committed suicide. Make of… Read more »
It seems broadcasters are set to default on the wages of the pundits.
.., and so it begins
Next step they will sit with the league and renovate the contract. Even if the league manages to play games behind closed doors, the broadcasters will consider that to be a lesser product than what they signed up for.
The premier league needs to make some very quick decisions.
One possibility is to award contractor 2022-2023 season to these same broadcasters at a reduced rate to compensate them for this abrupted season.
“Next step they will sit with the league and revise the contract”
I was speaking with a contract lawyer who works with an NFL team. He’s a Scottish expat [grew up in Aberdeen] and has supported Newcastle since he was a kid. He’s certain that the US broadcaster is going to make a pitch to renegotiate their broadcasting deal based on on an act of God /force majeure. They will seek to get future seasons for reduced cost to pay off this years fees. Fox sports did the same to FIFA, successfully snagged the 2026 and 2030 world cups for reduced fees after FIFA changed the date of the 2022 World Cup… Read more »
Let’s say we took a zero out of football. So, 75,000 per month became 7,500. I doubt we would see much difference on the pitch. Fewer young people presumably would lose focus or write off their solid gold rocket cars. It might bring back a focus on identifying and nurturing local talent over importing overseas stars. The savings could be reflected in the price of matchday tickets and season tickets, tv subscriptions and the general cost of following a team. Agents would be less bold about manipulating clubs for their own benefit. I don’t see too much down side, so… Read more »
Swap giroud for an elite striker through 14 – 16 and we would have had a shot at titles, discuss
Southampton becomes the first PL team where the squad and board defer salaries to pay non-playing staff in full until July.
https://www.southamptonfc.com/news/2020-04-09/southampton-football-club-statement-coronavirus-response-april-2020
Still waiting on those “Arsenal Values”.
It’s only deferring, not giving up salary, not a single penny. City are looking to do the same. Pathetic really, they just get paid a bit later. And those taxes that they were so keen to pay to support the NHS will now also be deferred. The evidence suggests that footballers aren’t going to take a drop in pay if they can possibly avoid it. Ozil isn’t going to walk away from £350k a week and no-one else is going to pay it. Other players who we’d like to move on will likewise see out their expensive contracts. I’m sure… Read more »
The media has been shameful during this whole situation. Click-bait article after click-bait article. I guess it makes financial sense for them since bad news is more lucrative than good news but at some point they must realise there is a moral responsibility as well.
andy
With no foreseeable restart date or even a realistic starting date for next season at some point clubs are going to have to stop paying players.
I really think the PL collectively are sitting back and hoping that this begins to ease up before they have to make a decision