Thinking back to when the Premier League was postponed back in March, I wishfully hoped the season would be made null and void. Admittedly that hope was only really for two reasons. Firstly because we were having such an awful season I was desperate to see it end, and secondly it meant I could laugh at all the Liverpool fans I know who were so cocksure about their imminent Premier League success.
Fast forward to today and as far as I’m concerned those two reasons are now null and void.
Ending the season now has become far more important than just getting one-upmanship on other fans.
Here I am writing a blog on whether the Premier League season should end. Sam and I discussed whether the season should end on our latest podcast. Ex-pros, commentators and sports journalists are discussing whether the Premier League should be ended ALL the while there is a global pandemic killing people in their thousands on a daily basis. It’s becoming more and more ridiculous that it even has to be a discussion.
France, Netherlands and Belgium have all rightfully cancelled their football seasons and the sooner the rest of Europe (and indeed the world) follow suit the better.
The latest proposal to complete the Premier League season, and as far as I am aware the best one they could come up with, is to have the remaining games played behind closed doors, with all the players wearing facemasks and the ball changed at regular intervals. the players would also have a COVID-19 test twice a week.
Can you imagine watching a game on TV under those conditions? It sounds like a horribly hacked game of FIFA20.
What happened to games being played behind closed doors being a punishment?
Also, the fact the games would be played behind closed doors just proves that the powers that be aren’t interested in getting the season finished for our benefit. The fans that pay thousands of pounds a season to watch our club. They don’t want us there!!
Strip everything away and it always comes down to money, but I’m sorry, on this occasion, giving thousands of masks and COVID-19 tests to football players every week when those tests and masks could go to the brave NHS staff putting their lives on the line to keep us alive during this pandemic is frankly a disgusting idea.
It smacks of arrogance, and probably the vast sums of money now involved in elite football have manifested their arrogance, but while we are all struggling, trying the best we can to deal with the situation we all find ourselves in, the last thing we need is to have strange, soulless football fed through our television screens.
This season has to be cancelled. Give Liverpool the title. Let us all focus on getting through this horrible pandemic because ultimately, as much as it doesn’t feel like it when we watch Spurs chalk an impressive win, some things are just bigger than football.
Matt Coulson.