In a thread full of rumour, counter rumour, conjecture, speculation and wishful thinking, here is a little something direct from the mouth of someone truly in the know.
Talking to a friend high up at the FA and at the heart of Project Restart, I gleaned the following little tidbits...
- They rate the chance of it happening as 50/50 (so no sitting on the fence, then)
- The FA are very keen (i.e. desperate) for the FA Cup to finish as it is currently their only source of income, having already lost the many, many, many millions from Euro 2020
Nothing too surprising there. The most interesting point however was this...
Using all of the GPS player data they have ascertained that, on average, players are in close contact with other players for . . . wait for it . . . just NINETY seconds per match. Personally I find that ‘surprising’ (just thinking about all the time at corners where everyone is packed into the box and tussling for position (there are an average of 11 corners per game)) but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. If that’s what the data says, then that’s what the data says.
So they see the biggest issue as being not what goes on during the 90 minutes on the pitch, but what happens before and after the games. In other words in the changing room. That’s where it’s hard/impossible to socially distance.
So, to minimise/eradicate the time spent in that environment, I wouldn’t be surprised if players were told to arrive at the ground (in their own cars) already changed into full kit.
And obviously they could all just leave straight afterwards, jump into the car in muddy kit (ooh, all that mud, sweat and tears over their white, hand-stitched, Napa leather interiors), and change when they got home. But what about all that post-match sports science physio stuff like ice baths?
And how are they going to do team talks? Everyone on a pre match Zoom call on their phones in their cars in the car park?
And the pre-match huddle? It’d have to be in a circle 7m across to maintain 2m social distancing (I knew that c=2(Pi)r formula we learnt at school would come in useful once in my lifetime).
And they’d surely have to emerge from the tunnel one at a time rather than en masse.
And the ‘bench’ wouldn’t be sat on the bench (dug out), they’d be sat in the stands with a seat or three between everyone.
And everyone would have to have their own “technical area”.
What else could they do pre and post match to help get this on?
Also, on a separate point, regarding how to stop fans congregating round grounds during BCD matches. Couldn’t the police caution anyone stupid, selfish and reckless enough to do it, get their names and addresses, feed the details back to the clubs, who then issue banning orders? I’d have thought it highly likely that anyone keen enough to want to go to the ground to NOT watch a match would probably have a season ticket, so to lose the ability to actually watch a match when they resume properly might be an effective deterrent. Or worse, and more drastically and controversially, strip them of all their loyalty points. That’ll stop it dead.
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