RateTheRef

Quote from: bmb on Sat 15 Jan 2022 16:09

Quote from: Referee99 on Sat 15 Jan 2022 14:44

Hope there’s going to be as much outrage on this forum that spurs vs arsenal has been called off as there was everton vs leicester being called off

Was their outrage on here? I must have missed it. So many games called off over the last few weeks, I've lost count on which teams. I recall comments about Newcastle because it was as much an injury problem as it was covid related, which most think tough luck on re injuries. Me included to be fair, if injury related tough luck imo, if covid related then fair enough.

I think it is a tough one.

Personally I'd probably have said games could only be postponed if intervention from public health authorities - e.g. if training ground is ordered to be closed or entire squad forced into isolation (I guess less likely to happen now as close contacts don't have to self-isolate if they've been vaccinated - but of course that's another layer to all of this, as not all players will have been.) I'd maybe have allowed clubs to have a larger squad and asked them to consider implications of transfers/loans etc.

But one of the aspects seems to be sporting integrity. Obviously that was never really an issue before Covid - if you had a lot of players absent because of internationals/injuries then it was just tough and you had to get on with it.

Should Covid materially change that? If you're allowing a team to postpone a game due to integrity of league if they have 12 Covid cases, then is it then fair to prevent them from doing this if they have 3 Covid cases and 9 players at the African Cup of Nations? What if they have 11 Covid cases and 1 player at African Cup of Nations? Or if a player tests positive who is injured for 3 months so couldn't have played anyway?

It is not an easy balance to achieve - and I'm not sure it would be fair to change the rules mid-season, even if they are having unintended consequences.

The difference for me is that covid is highly contagious so yes it should be treated differently. They already have changed the rules mid season - they now count covid + injuries, whereas before it was just covid. I don't believe teams should have the same leeway for postponement due to injury (as has been the way for years) and especially not because players are missing due to AFCON.  They know when they sign the players they'll be away for it so that's on their transfer/signing policy.  They can change that by signing more British players or just non African players even to balance their squad better. If a team chooses to sign a high number of players who will be going to AFCON then they can't then complain about squad shortages when they do, imo. They certainly should not be allowed to use it as a basis for postponements. If they have regularly played players who fall into the not needing to be named in the 25 man squad because they are under 21 category, then those players should automatically be counted towards the 13 needed. If they're good enough to play week in week out then close the loophole of them not being counted when there is an issue. It's not that long ago one of the London clubs played a European game despite the team being decimated due to food poisoning because they were refused a postponement. That same precedent should be used for injuries, imo.