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What if they shut down the season?


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Situation could well have changed by then with less deaths. WHO guidelines are only 1 meter, so by then it could be changed, allowing more people in the ground.
Streaming option could be available as well. 
Also a large percentage of fans could be confirmed to be immune by then also.

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4 hours ago, policemans whistle said:

We have 3 stands and they would be set out to make sure self distancing takes place. Also probably season ticket holders only.

On another theme We are hearing that reconstruction is back on the table. With Anne Budge being asked to look at further ways it can come about. Sportsound to-day.

 

Seems like the ugly sisters and Aberdeen are backing temporary reconstruction.  I suspect arms are being twisted behind the scenes to support 14-14-14, so an interesting few weeks ahead.  Still not confident we'll see any football in the lower leagues next season.  

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2 minutes ago, AirdrieJag said:

Seems like the ugly sisters and Aberdeen are backing temporary reconstruction.  I suspect arms are being twisted behind the scenes to support 14-14-14, so an interesting few weeks ahead.  Still not confident we'll see any football in the lower leagues next season.  

Would have thought if arms are being twisted, and I am sure your right about this, the SPFL and the clubs doing the twisting are not going to push for reconstruction albeit temporary and not play football. 

As I said previously I suspect lower league clubs can meet social distancing requirements in terms of ground capacity and crowd size more easily than SPL clubs

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51 minutes ago, Alan Murray said:

Situation could well have changed by then with less deaths. WHO guidelines are only 1 meter, so by then it could be changed, allowing more people in the ground.
Streaming option could be available as well. 
Also a large percentage of fans could be confirmed to be immune by then also.

When you look at the actual percentage of those actually infected and again the percentage of those that die of it, there is a big argument that we are potentially over playing it

0.5% of the UK population have been classified as being infected

0.04% of the UK population have died of it, but of that percentage 20% had dementia or alzimers 18% had serious respiratory conditions.

 

Putting that into “Firhill” perspective 

2500 fans would be 12 infected and 1 death

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26 minutes ago, exiledjag said:

Would have thought if arms are being twisted, and I am sure your right about this, the SPFL and the clubs doing the twisting are not going to push for reconstruction albeit temporary and not play football. 

As I said previously I suspect lower league clubs can meet social distancing requirements in terms of ground capacity and crowd size more easily than SPL clubs

I think you're right about lower league clubs being more able to meet social distancing rules.  We could probably safely accommodate 2k in Firhill.   I think the key issue will be whether the economics of running the league with massively reduced revenue can be made to work, and I think that's very problematic.  

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31 minutes ago, Norgethistle said:

When you look at the actual percentage of those actually infected and again the percentage of those that die of it, there is a big argument that we are potentially over playing it

0.5% of the UK population have been classified as being infected

0.04% of the UK population have died of it, but of that percentage 20% had dementia or alzimers 18% had serious respiratory conditions.

 

Putting that into “Firhill” perspective 

2500 fans would be 12 infected and 1 death

Put your "Firhill" perspective into a "Scottish football" perspective. Obviously, crowd sizes vary but stick with one dead fan per game. That's 20 per week.

Of course, if you're going to allow football, then what about the Scottish Grand National. A great day out (for those that don't die).  

Music festivals? Why not let Belladrum go ahead? Say ten dead. Not too bad, I suppose.

Stay alert.

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1 hour ago, BowenBoys said:

Put your "Firhill" perspective into a "Scottish football" perspective. Obviously, crowd sizes vary but stick with one dead fan per game. That's 20 per week.

Of course, if you're going to allow football, then what about the Scottish Grand National. A great day out (for those that don't die).  

Music festivals? Why not let Belladrum go ahead? Say ten dead. Not too bad, I suppose.

Stay alert.

That percentage is since it started. 
 

788 league matches saw 4,486,145 attend

So 119000 (Total fans/ total games X 21 weekly games) different fans go to games (ave) as most as these are week in week out supporters.

That equates to under 600 fans who attend football in Scotland catching it in the last 3 months. 
 

Very interesting bit in the ONS data where April’s fatalities is actually lower than last April.

I know of 3 families in the Nottingham/Derby area who are legally disputing the cause of death on the death certificate being given as COVID, 2 of them were late stage terminal cancer and the other with severe dementia with not long left. 

Im not sure if lockdown is working better than decent social distancing.  Keeping the lockdown going another 2 or 3 months will potentially do more damage to more people than the actual virus. If unemployment goes to 20 or 30% or higher more people will starve as no government can fund that with no revenue coming in

Edited by Norgethistle
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I'm not too sure the third option (playing football matches with social distancing and other provisos) in any case would be practical. I reckon the weight of duty of care lumped on the host club would be too heavy to bear. Even if you do run with it the cost of additional stewarding, publicising and necessary health & safety paraphernalia alone could be problematic.

In my mind there's only two ways football can restart, behind closed doors or what's nationally accepted as back to normal basis. At our level we can more or less rule out the former, so I fear it'll be many months till we kick off any new season.

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as Alan Murray states above, the current WHO guidance is 1 metre separation & wear face covering (i.e. a thistle scarf) - perhaps spawning a new song "we'll sit where we want..." 

As we've seen from down south already this week, the 2 metre separation is simply not practical on public transport or in most workplaces moving forward so will have to change. 

Also agree with Norge - there is real overplay especially in relation to the dreaded second wave of infection - they appear to be linking to the Spanish flu where the second wave was caused by a deadlier mutated strain that could kill within a day. Current scientific evidence from several countries shows that this virus is much slower at mutation when compared to normal flu. 

Get soap & paper towels in the toilets and get the gates open in July ffs :thumbsup2:

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3 hours ago, AirdrieJag said:

I think you're right about lower league clubs being more able to meet social distancing rules.  We could probably safely accommodate 2k in Firhill.   I think the key issue will be whether the economics of running the league with massively reduced revenue can be made to work, and I think that's very problematic.  

I agree but assuming there is some business experience on our Board we have to think in terms of financial concepts such as 'contribution' instead of profit at the moment! 

It's years since I studied accountancy and business so my description might be a bit suspect. 

 Let's assume we have costs of 20k a week  therefore 40k for every two weeks whether or not we play a game of football. We can also assume the cost of playing is 5k (police, stewards etc) plus 1k for away games. Total costs for two weeks if playing would be 46k.

A home game with a restricted attendance of say 2000 would bring in 30k!

Therefore instead of a deficit over two weeks of 40k the deficit over the same period if we play a game will be 16k.

We haven't made any money but by playing a game even with a restricted attendance we have made a 'contribution' of 30k toward our costs and reduced the potential deficit from 40k to 16k.

Not a great scenario but one which makes whatever reserves we have go further and its something that Banks like to see! 

This is what is happening on-line at the moment.  I have just bought a pair of walking shoes and a pair of boots (for hillwalking) for a total £110. The original total price was £258. What the company is doing by heavily discounting is following a 'marginal pricing and costing' strategy to sell as much as it can to help cover its fixed costs or at  least make a 'contribution' to these fixed costs! 

Apologies if you already knew all this stuff. 

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If you look at the house of commons at prime ministers questions, they have one row empty and the next populated. 

Taking out every other row takes us to 5k & leaving a metre (or two seats) between each supporters party and the next would potentially have us about 2k attendance. 

 

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I think it's encouraging that Anne Budge has been asked to do further work on producing a paper on temporary reconstruction for the clubs to consider! 

However there is still IMO a lot of arm twisting needed to get reconstruction over the line especially with  Hibs, Ross County, St Mirren, St Johnstone and Dundee Utd. 

I am sure the statements by Rangers, Stranraer, ourselves and others  that the matter isn't over  has had some influence of events! 

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4 hours ago, policemans whistle said:

One German club offers for a fee, a cut out figure with your picture attached to it on closed door games. Idea for us on the bing!?

 

We started that a few seasons ago, with our players playing like cardboard cut outs.

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7 hours ago, policemans whistle said:

One German club offers for a fee, a cut out figure with your picture attached to it on closed door games. Idea for us on the bing!?

 

The return of the Gnomes to the bing , each with an installed CAM for streaming   :getmecoat:   

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6 hours ago, exiledjag said:

I agree but assuming there is some business experience on our Board we have to think in terms of financial concepts such as 'contribution' instead of profit at the moment! 

It's years since I studied accountancy and business so my description might be a bit suspect. 

 Let's assume we have costs of 20k a week  therefore 40k for every two weeks whether or not we play a game of football. We can also assume the cost of playing is 5k (police, stewards etc) plus 1k for away games. Total costs for two weeks if playing would be 46k.

A home game with a restricted attendance of say 2000 would bring in 30k!

Therefore instead of a deficit over two weeks of 40k the deficit over the same period if we play a game will be 16k.

We haven't made any money but by playing a game even with a restricted attendance we have made a 'contribution' of 30k toward our costs and reduced the potential deficit from 40k to 16k.

Not a great scenario but one which makes whatever reserves we have go further and its something that Banks like to see! 

This is what is happening on-line at the moment.  I have just bought a pair of walking shoes and a pair of boots (for hillwalking) for a total £110. The original total price was £258. What the company is doing by heavily discounting is following a 'marginal pricing and costing' strategy to sell as much as it can to help cover its fixed costs or at  least make a 'contribution' to these fixed costs! 

Apologies if you already knew all this stuff. 

I think you have underestimated the cost of playing a match. Firstly there is the cost of the additional players that we would need to sign. The cost of restarting training. The cost of virus testing for players and officials. The cost of players appearance and win bonuses. 
 

I have no idea of the exact amounts but testing is estimated to be over £100k for English clubs to complete this season. I suspect that the cost of putting on a match is more than the match day revenue, something the banks don’t like to see

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8 hours ago, gianlucatoni said:

If you look at the house of commons at prime ministers questions, they have one row empty and the next populated. 

Taking out every other row takes us to 5k & leaving a metre (or two seats) between each supporters party and the next would potentially have us about 2k attendance. 

 

Clearly there's a flaw in their calculations.  They've left the green ticks as well.

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2 hours ago, Dick Dastardly said:

I think you have underestimated the cost of playing a match. Firstly there is the cost of the additional players that we would need to sign. The cost of restarting training. The cost of virus testing for players and officials. The cost of players appearance and win bonuses. 
 

I have no idea of the exact amounts but testing is estimated to be over £100k for English clubs to complete this season. I suspect that the cost of putting on a match is more than the match day revenue, something the banks don’t like to see

With a 14 team league, could we blood more young players already on the books? 

Win bonuses, I like your optimism :D

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The 4 German clubs who qualified for this season's champions league, have pledged 20 million euros, to help all clubs in the top 2 German leagues. Maybe some of our bigger clubs could give up a small percentage of their income to help other clubs in Scotland.:thinking:

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17 hours ago, Norgethistle said:

When you look at the actual percentage of those actually infected and again the percentage of those that die of it, there is a big argument that we are potentially over playing it

0.5% of the UK population have been classified as being infected

0.04% of the UK population have died of it, but of that percentage 20% had dementia or alzimers 18% had serious respiratory conditions.

 

Putting that into “Firhill” perspective 

2500 fans would be 12 infected and 1 death

So every home match would result in one person dying and a number of others potentially becoming seriously ill? I’m not quite sure that’s as strong an argument as you think it is. 

 

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19 hours ago, Norgethistle said:

When you look at the actual percentage of those actually infected and again the percentage of those that die of it, there is a big argument that we are potentially over playing it

0.5% of the UK population have been classified as being infected

0.04% of the UK population have died of it, but of that percentage 20% had dementia or alzimers 18% had serious respiratory conditions.

 

Putting that into “Firhill” perspective 

2500 fans would be 12 infected and 1 death

Bit simplistic but I do agree that there needs to be a greater understanding of risk. If you restricted attendance to those under 60 then the risks would be significantly reduced. Problem is we are risk averse in this country. Every politician and business (includes SPFL) worry that they'll get slaughtered if things get worse. We need to start to factor in the social and economic consequences on health of business (including Scottish football) not happening and realise that we need to think more imaginatively in managing the virus in the new normal. 

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First every death is a multiple tragedy that simple numbers cannot even begin to convey.  I also wonder, in suggesting that attendance be restricted to those under sixty, if the writer has a clear understanding of the fan profile of those who attend Thistle fixtures.  I don't mind paying for a Season Ticket, last season and for 2020/21. But I do draw the line at the suggestion of naked ageism (which would in fact place the business at risk of legal action against it) 

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20 hours ago, Norgethistle said:

Putting that into “Firhill” perspective 

2500 fans would be 12 infected and 1 death

That's if those 2500 people are going about their normal lockdown lives. Bring them all together in a more crowded environment than usual and those figure may well change. In other words football matches become hotspots. Are the Scottish government or football authorities going to let that happen?

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