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Could Coronavirus Kill Our 42 Clubs


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Surely some of the factors that need to be brought out are:-

Examples of the way other associations are dealing with such incidences.

The fact that it’s unfair that clubs will only be investigated if they can’t fulfil a fixture. Therefore other teams could breach rules in exactly the same way and not be punished. 

Unfairly penalises smaller clubs with smaller squads. 

Awarding 3-0 victories will potentially penalise other teams who weren’t involved. 
 

Here’s a question. If you were offered 6 points deduction and the matches to be played, rather than the 3-0 awards, would you take it? Trusting that we win the games meaning status quo for us but Well and Accies not benefitting from 3 points, but if we lost the matches it would mean a 6 point swing in each case. 🤔

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3 hours ago, TPAFKA Jersey 2 said:

They might have no choice if the government get involved. If it happened relatively soon, there is no way they would be able to call champions and relegation like they did last season at such an early stage. 

Agreed.

You really need to get to about 26 matches before you can even start to think about calling a champion or relegation.

ETA. I see Ronnie has already mentioned 26. I get that number by looking at 2/3 of season.

Edited by oaksoft
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1 minute ago, TPAFKA Jersey 2 said:

Me neither

I wonder if playing the Scottish Cup games against teams which have not been tested will be the straw which breaks the camel's back.

The problem here is the football authorities insisting on playing every cup and every league game. We should have had probably no Cups this season and a shortened season of maybe 30 games or so.

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5 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

We are one major outbreak at a senior club away from the plug being pulled.

I just can't believe we are going to see a complete season.

I think there is more possibility of Scottish leagues being completed that those down here where there is utter carnage in all leagues.

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13 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

I wonder if playing the Scottish Cup games against teams which have not been tested will be the straw which breaks the camel's back.

The problem here is the football authorities insisting on playing every cup and every league game. We should have had probably no Cups this season and a shortened season of maybe 30 games or so.

That’s a fair point. Arguably our existing issues were caused by playing the League Cup games. 

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It’s whataboutery though Slarti. Neither of those clubs have been unable to fulfil fixtures. I’m surprised by now that only ourselves and Killie have been affected up here in the top league with this “lack of players” reason.
Have there been other cancellations in Scotland’s other pro leagues as a direct result of COVID-19? I can’t remember. Sorry.
There have been a number of similar incidents in England, but so far the EFL investigation into Sunderland AFC who were forced to miss 5 games has not been published. 
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/sunderland-fixture-congestion-season-covid-19484883
It's absolutely not "whataboutery".

If the 3-0 "punishments" are for being unable to fulfill fixtures then questions need to be asked about games that have been cancelled in the past due to (for example) flu outbreaks at clubs and why this is different.

If they are for breaking "covid rules" then other clubs that have demonstrably broke them should get the same penalty - but seeing as they never postponed games who gets the 3-0 "victory"?

There is no way that they can prove that any rule breaking resulted in a spread of the virus, so the punishment can't be for that. They can't even prove how likely it is. If they say it's "likely", then ask to see the calculations.

IIRC, we had just played Killie before they were diagnosed, who is to say that our infections did not stem from that game?

It's all about what they can prove previous precidents and consistent punishments.

On a separate note, it's also "a bit weird" that (for example) Celtic, who do their own testing, have had no "domestic" infections but a few players test positive when they go on international duty. Who to believe, eh?
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1 hour ago, Yflab said:

It’s whataboutery though Slarti. Neither of those clubs have been unable to fulfil fixtures. I’m surprised by now that only ourselves and Killie have been affected up here in the top league with this “lack of players” reason.

Have there been other cancellations in Scotland’s other pro leagues as a direct result of COVID-19? I can’t remember. Sorry.

There have been a number of similar incidents in England, but so far the EFL investigation into Sunderland AFC who were forced to miss 5 games has not been published. 

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/sunderland-fixture-congestion-season-covid-19484883

I think Albion Rovers have an investigation pending due to a postponement 

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It's absolutely not "whataboutery".

If the 3-0 "punishments" are for being unable to fulfill fixtures then questions need to be asked about games that have been cancelled in the past due to (for example) flu outbreaks at clubs and why this is different.

If they are for breaking "covid rules" then other clubs that have demonstrably broke them should get the same penalty - but seeing as they never postponed games who gets the 3-0 "victory"?

There is no way that they can prove that any rule breaking resulted in a spread of the virus, so the punishment can't be for that. They can't even prove how likely it is. If they say it's "likely", then ask to see the calculations.

IIRC, we had just played Killie before they were diagnosed, who is to say that our infections did not stem from that game?

It's all about what they can prove previous precidents and consistent punishments.

On a separate note, it's also "a bit weird" that (for example) Celtic, who do their own testing, have had no "domestic" infections but a few players test positive when they go on international duty. Who to believe, eh?
We are not appealing the guilty verdict so that isn't up for debate or over turning. All the appeal will decide is if the punishment fits the crime.

Pointless arguing about who did what, where and when. We admitted it all. It's all about whether the punishment was too severe which imo it was.
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45 minutes ago, Ayrshire Saints said:

We are not appealing the guilty verdict so that isn't up for debate or over turning. All the appeal will decide is if the punishment fits the crime.

Pointless arguing about who did what, where and when. We admitted it all. It's all about whether the punishment was too severe which imo it was.

As far as I'm aware, we admitted to infractions. We didn't admit to this being the reason for the calling off of games. In fact we couldn't conclusively say that's what spread the virus through the camp. Saints couldn't know that for certain. No one could. 

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48 minutes ago, Ayrshire Saints said:

We are not appealing the guilty verdict so that isn't up for debate or over turning. All the appeal will decide is if the punishment fits the crime.

Pointless arguing about who did what, where and when. We admitted it all. It's all about whether the punishment was too severe which imo it was.

Indeed. The real punishments should be reserved for those who used their wife’s police ID to skip supermarket queues at the start of the crisis to shop at a time reserved for NHS staff.

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St Mirren had a game called off in 1999/2000 against Dunfermline as a result of so many players being down with flu.

This wasn’t based on tests. This was based on players being physically ill with flu.

The peak of deaths that winter in the UK was greater than the peak of deaths in 2020. 
 

Does anyone remember the flu crisis that year?

No, me neither 

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We are not appealing the guilty verdict so that isn't up for debate or over turning. All the appeal will decide is if the punishment fits the crime.

Pointless arguing about who did what, where and when. We admitted it all. It's all about whether the punishment was too severe which imo it was.




As far as I'm aware, we admitted to infractions. We didn't admit to this being the reason for the calling off of games. In fact we couldn't conclusively say that's what spread the virus through the camp. Saints couldn't know that for certain. No one could. 


And that is the point.

Was the punishment for:

A. Breaking the "covid rules"?
B. Not being able to field a team?
C. B because of A?
D. Being a diddy team.

A we admitted to but other clubs have demonstrably broken the rules too without punishment and Killie got half the punishment, therefore it can't be that.

B hasn't been the case historically when clubs have had other viruses sweep through them, so it can't be that either.

C can't be proven, so not that either.

It only leaves D.
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And that is the point.

Was the punishment for:

A. Breaking the "covid rules"?
B. Not being able to field a team?
C. B because of A?
D. Being a diddy team.

A we admitted to but other clubs have demonstrably broken the rules too without punishment and Killie got half the punishment, therefore it can't be that.

B hasn't been the case historically when clubs have had other viruses sweep through them, so it can't be that either.

C can't be proven, so not that either.

It only leaves D.
But all we are appealing is the severity of the punishment. Not sure what relevance any if this has to that. We are appealing against forfeiting two games and a 40k suspended fine.

All the SFA panel will look at is if the punishment passed down befitted the charges we admitted. What caused infection / spread / postponement etc is now wholly irrelevant.

It's should the two 3V0 forfeits and 40k fine stand or will we impose an alternative sanction.

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Our defence should be:

Ask exactly what the punishment was for then use my previous post.

If they say that they are working on likelihoods/probabilities for C above, then ask to see the data that supports their calculations and the statistical method used.

Also ask:

A. What the punishment would be for a club that breaks the rules, has enough players ill that they couldn't field a team but has no games scheduled and/or all games cancelled due to weather during the quarantine period.

B. What the punishment would be if both teams scheduled to play in a match had broken the rules and couldn't field a team.

It really shouldn't be difficult to show that the postponements and rule breaking are not necessarily linked and that the punishment is such that it cannot be applied consistently.

However, it's Scottish fitba authorities so ...

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The 15/16 page report was embarrassing, a blatant disregard for the fairly simple guidelines.

With so many involved, why wasn't this challenged? 

Did it 100% result in the spread, nobody can tell, but it's REASONABLE to assume it did.

Guilty M'lord. 

No mater how much people fanny about with semantics we fcuked up.

Do we deserve the punishment, I wonder what we would be saying if it was any of our rivals? 

 

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But all we are appealing is the severity of the punishment. Not sure what relevance any if this has to that. We are appealing against forfeiting two games and a 40k suspended fine.

All the SFA panel will look at is if the punishment passed down befitted the charges we admitted. What caused infection / spread / postponement etc is now wholly irrelevant.

It's should the two 3V0 forfeits and 40k fine stand or will we impose an alternative sanction.

Of course it's relevant as it wouldn't even have been looked at if the games hadn't been postponed. If we had only missed one game, there would only be one 3-0 defeat awarded, if we had missed 3 then, no doubt, there would have been 3 awarded. These are inconsistent punishments for the same infraction, the breaking of the "covid rules". They also only appear to apply to clubs that have to postpone games, so the punishment appears to be for that and not for breaking the rules. The fine, fair enough as they were consistent with it. Basically, it appears we have been punished for something we weren't "charged" with.
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The 15/16 page report was embarrassing, a blatant disregard for the fairly simple guidelines.
With so many involved, why wasn't this challenged? 
Did it 100% result in the spread, nobody can tell, but it's REASONABLE to assume it did.
Guilty M'lord. 
No mater how much people fanny about with semantics we fcuked up.
Do we deserve the punishment, I wonder what we would be saying if it was any of our rivals? 
 
We deserve to be punished but not like that.

Why would you say that it's "reasonable to assume it did"? Even if it was, assumptions are not evidence and "common sense", if that is what's leading you to believe it is reasonable, is quite often wrong.

The point is maybe it did, maybe it didn't but we shouldn't be punished for maybes.

As I've said already, a points deduction would be fairer (as it could be consistently applied) but would still be way over the top.

If it was one of our rivals I would still be saying the same things but I would also be laughing at them, it's the nature of the game.
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3 hours ago, faraway saint said:

The 15/16 page report was embarrassing, a blatant disregard for the fairly simple guidelines.

With so many involved, why wasn't this challenged? 

Did it 100% result in the spread, nobody can tell, but it's REASONABLE to assume it did.

Guilty M'lord. 

No mater how much people fanny about with semantics we fcuked up.

Do we deserve the punishment, I wonder what we would be saying if it was any of our rivals? 

 

No it's not. We played Killie just before our outbreak. I believe it's actually more likely that would be the cause. 

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10 hours ago, Slarti said:

We deserve to be punished but not like that.

 

If you believe that then you already know why we've been punished and you'll have answered your own questions.

This is about the severity of the punishment and you want our defence team to go in with some distracting, wittering pish about them having to prove we are guilty when we've already admitted it?

Edited by oaksoft
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