Should the Premier League season be suspended?
Should the Premier League season be suspended?
By Tom Masters
The Premier League has suffered in recent weeks after the sudden arrival of the latest coronavirus variant, Omicron.
It has swept through the country causing the government to revert back to Plan B, which has seen extra restrictions brought in including making masks mandatory on public transport and Covid passports being required to enter sports stadiums.
But another impact of Omicron is cause significant disruption to the Premier League’s festive fixture list, with as many as 10 matches postponed owing to teams having Covid-19 cases to deal with.
And those cancelled clashes added to the previous two in gameweeks 24 and 25, with Chelsea’s involvement in the FIFA Club World Cup and Tottenham’s snowed off match with Burnley causing further problems.
This could not have come at a worse time for the Premier league, with the festive period notoriously busy and this year proving to be no different as fixtures come thick and fast.
The Premier League yesterday announced that the Boxing Day fixtures would “continue where safely possible.”
But with all these problems, should the Premier League season be suspended?
Fixture pile-up
Currently there are 13 fixtures that have been postponed in total, including the three non-Covid-related cancellations.
That is more than an entire round of Premier League action and will take significant planning to enable those fixtures to be played in a timely manner.
Announcements have already been made that the FA Cup third and fourth rounds will not have replays should there not be a result in the initial ties, with matches instead going through the traditional route in the latter rounds of extra-time and penalties.
This frees up those midweeks for when the replays were saved and should allow the majority of those games to be played then.
But with teams like Tottenham, Brighton and Burnley having three matches to play it will require more planning, with the Premier League needing to be flexible to allow the 13 games to be played – and that number likely to increase in the coming weeks.
Not fair on fans
Fans have been welcomed back to stadiums this season in what has been a welcome return after almost 18 months of football with empty stadiums and fake crowd noise to deal with.
But with Covid sweeping the nation, many fans are in a dilemma as to whether or not they should attend matches or not, especially around the festive period when you may be spending time with elderly relatives.
Having spent significant money on tickets and knowing that there is no way of getting that money back other than match postponements places people in a tough position, with some deciding not to go and sacrificing the money and others going due to the money spent but not feeling entirely comfortable.
Aside from that, one of the recent issues has been how late the matches have been called off, with Aston Villa’s clash with Burnley last Saturday called off as late as two hours and 20 minutes before kick-off, with many fans well on their way to the game.
Winter break The Premier League decided that this season, like last season, it would not have a winter break due largely to the likely fixture pile-up.
But now seems like a good time to call an impromptu winter break, with teams having two weeks away from the training paddock to avoid the large number of cases the Premier League has seen in the past fortnight.
That should allow teams to return to a full squad and see teams able to hit the remainder of the season as planned and hopefully avoid further complications with even more postponements.