That FAI document is a cut and paste job from other leagues. Where on earth did they get the idea that they need 20 ballboys!
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It is encouring to see the FAI make an effort and explore options to get football going again. I cant see it being vialbe but still its more professional to have a discussion on the matter and have the clubs involved in the decision. Its a good sign for the future.
TBH it's a shambles.
Players training in groups of five and maintaining social distancing. What's that going to do to standards? We will have a subset of fans paying a fraction of the normal price to watch worse football in empty venues.
They never address the elephant in the room that football is a contact sport.
Also, the HSE decide who gets tested, not the FAI so knowing who is infected is impossible, especially given many show no symptoms.
Any number of other holes in it but there's better things to be at.
It's not remotely good enough, let's hope it's just a bit of naivety from the new regime. But I find it very worrying indeed.
I'd say a fair few players wouldn't be overly happy with those proposals either. Are they free to walk away from their contracts in that case? I don't know if they could argue that there'd be a health risk and so the terms have changed.
I agree it's good to see debate alright. The hope now is the right course of action is taken - and it probably needs to be a unanimous decision. But I don't think those proposals are feasible tbh.
These proposals are not feasible in the current climate but who knows how the landscape will look at the start of September. If social distancing is here to stay are all forms of contact sport out until a vaccine is found? That could be 2 to 3 years away before a vaccine is a. found, b. mass produced and c. government procured and distributed. At some stage there will have to be exceptions to social distancing which will increase risk but as long as that risk is managed to an acceptable level. I don't see any harm in exploring a way forward in a few months time - the sooner they can agree something the sooner they can start planning.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breaki.../--996619.html
Things like this though are reasons why it's good to explore all options. Looking into playing behind closed doors leads to looking into streaming games which had lead to a company enquiring about the rights to do the streaming.
Personally I don't think games behind closed doors is a runner at all but it had to be looked into.
Another thing with playing behind closed doors is clubs will take a massive hit on programs that they produce.I just can see clubs taking a financial hit on programs as fans will only buy a program for woteva game they attend. I think the logisitical step is to write off the season completely and wait till the winter imo.
To try force structure on a completely fluid situation is idiotic and a recipe for disaster.
I'll use this example to illustrate why
If the government came out and said right we want to do 10k tests a day admitting that it's optimistic but only managed to do 9k would you prefer that or they be "realistic" and say they want 4k but manage to do 5k but can't go any higher because they were realistic so didn't allow for capacity to facilitate the optimistic outcome.
I know which I'd prefer and it's the same principle here
How much money do clubs realistically make on programmes anyway?
I certainly wouldn't be writing off the season because people can't buy a match programme.
Football without fans.........etc
The novelty of streaming - it will pass fast i reckon.
Was it 2003 when we played 2 seasons in one year? Could be a runner.
For FHFC virtually every income stream is either badly hit or else completely wiped out by behind closed doors. Even our fundraisers involve the majority of money being returned on match nights. We do make a fair bit from the programme BTW. Not huge but not insignificant either in a league where every little helps. And no programme could mean programme advertisers seeking refunds.
The issue of season ticket holders hasn’t been addressed. The LOI won’t get away with giving two fingers like that GAA are looking set to do. It would represent a decent sum of cash for most clubs if they had to offer refunds or free season tickets for the following season if fans can return.
https://www.stpatsfc.com/news.php?id=8693
This is great stuff by Pats
As anyone that has worked on a large scale project will tell you, results don't always reflect the planning in place or work put in, external factors have a huge impact.
Nobody on earth, actually not an exaggeration, knows what a realistic projection for any of this. Talk of cancelling the season is pessimistic at best.
New work roster landed in today, with it was a letter from HR saying that they are looking in to ways to cover childcare, among other things, for frontline workers for the rest of the year!!! I know it is at least in part contingency planning but if a public health service thinks it is necessary to plan for that far ahead well it puts the resumption of sport in a bit of context. Especially when part of the plan is to very regularly swab staff so it will leave little lab capacity for non essential activity. Unless of course the clubs/associations can source labs to take on the job, its possible if not probable that UEFA could centralise some system for this. If games go ahead they could all resemble the 2nd half of the Disgrace of Gijón (albeit I was too young to remember it first hand!).