It appears that there is another pandemic on the rise with an extremely deadly disease called Ligma. Much worse than covid-19 with a deathrate of almost 50%. I have no idea why there is not more news about it, but beware. Ligma is spreading extremely fast and it might affect the season as well and possibly Euro 2021.
I think there's a huge chance we will be limited to national league matches for maybe two seasons. Wonder what impact that would have on the super clubs.
I don't think so. They may have to revisit the CL format, however. Without distracting ourselves with the whole EU-UK issue, the knockout stages of this CL season basically featured 16 clubs from the same country. But yeah... the format could see some changes. Not sure, for instance, if it makes sense playing two-legged KO contests when both legs will be played behind closed doors. So maybe reduce to just one leg in the ground of the higher seeded team (or randomly draw the host team).
The problem will be international contacts of players (on and of the pitch) and international travel, which poses risks of spreading the virus. Behind closed doors only works within a country and within a single league.
France gouvernment just declared no foreign tourists will be allowed, which means a huge blow for the tourism industry of about 30 billion €€. I can't see how CL/ELmatches will take place when a gouvernment blows out of the water that kind of money to prevent import of infections.
Well, firstly CL/EL matches are in September not now. So there is still time to bring the infection rates down. Secondly, a football club coming in to play a match is not considered "tourists". If they ban foreign business travel as well for the rest of the year and beyond, then CL/EL may have a problem...
I hear Champions League is set for August but that the Final won't be played until September/October but then again for the 2020-21 UEFA Champions League season I wonder when that will start? Euro 2021 of course is set for June so unless you have a shortened Champions League for next season I don't know how this will all work...someone explain this
Not sure why if it resumes in August that it won't finish until October. It'll take max two weeks to complete the CL. But yeah... 2020-21 CL qualifying may have to be scrapped. That could be a messy decision. (Granted I don't think any of the teams that are still playing in the CL would be involved in 2020-21 CL qualifying. So theoretically they could have a couple of 2020-21 CL qualifying rounds at the same time that the 2019-20 CL knockout stages are completed )
Thanks for explaining but a 2020-21 CL season being scrapped especially makes sense especially when FIFA are trying to fast track 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying for UEFA and other confederations at the same time
One doesn't really have anything to do with the other since CL is scheduled around the FIFA breaks that are used to carry-out WC qualifying. In any case, the concern around WC qualifying has to do with inter-continental travel combined with the fact that Covid-19 will likely still be more out-of-control in many countries in Africa and South America even after football is up and running in Europe.
Mmmm, Formula 1 is under threat in 2021. The UK gouvernment wants teams to go in quarantaine for two weeks. So they must demand that for soccer teams too. No CL/EL or Euro 2021 matches or WC 2022 qualifiers teams can do that.
The UK government comes up with new rules every day, and walks back from them the next. Also Silverstone are negotiating for more money. Nothing happens till it doesn't. Be cool.
Why can't Euro 2021 teams go into quarantine? Actually the whole player experience during int'l tournaments is pretty close to a quarantine anyway. (i.e. stay in hotels/camps separated from friends & family, walk directly from hotel to team bus which takes them directly to the entrance to the stadium, where there is security to keep them 2 meters away from gathering fans, rinse & repeat for six weeks).
It depends on how the clubs schedules pan out. But the main problem is the tournement isnot in one country, but spread out all over Europe, so it's virtually impossible to quarantaine for all matches. Once you leave camp for a match it's the end of the quarantaine and you have to go in it after the match again to be able to travel and play the next match.
I don't think that will be the situation next summer, but they're already planning holidays for people who are tested and shielded throughout, along with all the staff and drivers/pilots they might encounter. High end 5* all inclusive of course, armed security guards stopping the locals getting in and them getting out. No reason why they couldn't do the same for footballers.
The problem with that scenario is that you go out of quarantaine the moment you go to the stadium. So de facto you have to go back into a new 14 days quarantaine for the next match.
The stadium is still a soft quarantine in a sense because you are only engaging with others that are also in the same type of quarantine and getting tested constantly. So I don't think this is a problem. The issue for me is more around having a continental-wide tournament when fans are watching on TV only. Just seems utterly pointless for teams to engage in all that travel just to play behind closed doors.
They might cancel the Nations League or reduce it down to half the games. I know that much is being discussed. I think there's a possibility the formatting of the UCL might change too. It's still too early to tell how things will pan out come Euro 2021.
Honestly I always felt that the Nations League was a waste, and meaningless competition. Never liked in the first place, and would definitely not mind to see it cancelled. You're killing the players by asking them to play that many competitive matches when you add up all the matches they play for their clubs. I thought the whole point of friendly matches was to see how things play out against other teams and not get too competitive like a somewhat relaxing match for players.