Saturday 13 June 2020

Who knows? Not me, that's for sure.

So where are we at with a potential restart and/or resumptio to the season? Who knows. Every day it seems there's restrictions being lifted, or at least talk of such in the near future. And yet in terms of the soccer stuff, most of us plebs are not much the wiser.

When will we see a restart? Will we be allowed to go? Which teams are in or out? What would the competition even look like? For whatever it's worth, both our men's and women's teams have been training, but anything more than, your guess is as good as mine as to what will actually happen.

There was talk of the leagues across the board being restarted - with promotion, and no threat of relegation, to avoid punishing teams that did not or could not resume play. Apart from the effect of inflating the numbers for the top division in 2021, that idea also necessitates the flow on effect of what to do for the top NPL division. Why would teams play if they weren't going to get relegated, weren't likely to win a championship, and weren't going to be able make any or much money at the gate and canteen?

And then there's talk of players moving on from NPL clubs to cash in on state league teams willing to throw the dice for promotion in this compromised season.

To the right is one set of possible scenarios as discussed within Football Victoria's meetings, which includes the possibility that the likely patchwork NPL season could include teams plucked from NPL 2 and 3 to fill out numbers.

Another source has told me that the league will resume on July 17, that Heidelberg and Avondale will be sitting out the comp, while Knights and Oakleigh are on the fence. Everyone else will play, and there'll be eight more rounds plus finals. Apart from their general commentary, another source of mine who is close to Heidelberg has told me that Heidelberg are very wary about the insurance implications of resuming, among other things.

Apart from that, there's  not much to say. I've been doing my radio show in Football Nation Radio, and piss-farting around wasting time. At least the footy's back.

1 comment:

  1. Oh, I forgot to mention the proposed offer of financial support from Football Victoria that would come in should the season recommence. It wouldn't cover all your bloated wages, but it would I guess help cover lost income from the canteen and gate; and the amount for each participating team would increase based on how few teams participated. Then again, if crowds are allowed to return, would this stipend idea be implemented?

    ReplyDelete

A few notes on comments.

We've had a lot of fun over the years with my freewheeling comments policy, but all good things must come to an end. Therefore I will no longer be approving comments that contain personal abuse of any sort.

Still, if your post doesn't get approved straight away, it's probably because I haven't seen it yet.

As usual, publication of a comment does not mean endorsement of its content.