The Premier League‘s bottom six are threatening to disrupt plans for the season to be resumed in mid-June because they do not want to lose home advantage in the remaining fixtures. The English top-flight has been suspended since March 13, with no matches having been played since March 9.
The brutal realities of the coronavirus crisis have understandably cast sport to the side, with COVID-19 having claimed the lives of nearly a quarter of a million people worldwide.
But plans are being put in place for Premier League football to return over the next few months.
All 20 clubs held a lengthy video conference call on Friday – which resulted in a statement declaring that all “are considering the first tentative moves forward and will only return to training and playing with Government guidance, under expert medical advice and after consultation with players and managers”.
But per the Daily Telegraph, not all 20 clubs are actually on the same page – with Brighton, Watford, West Ham, Bournemouth and Norwich all strongly against the idea of playing at neutral stadiums.
Aston Villa are said to be opposed to the idea too, but to a lesser extent than their relegation rivals.
One of the fundamental parts of the Premier League’s plan, dubbed ‘Project Restart’, is that the matches would be played out behind closed doors at around eight to 10 neutral venues.
No team would play a match at their home stadium, as the league attempts to ensure that fans do not gather in numbers outside grounds where their teams are playing.
The league will select stadiums that are outside densely-populated residential areas, with West Ham’s London Stadium and Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium among those likely to be picked.
The idea is that the league can then protect the welfare of the players and staff involved and also reduce the potential strain on the emergency services, particularly the NHS.
Yet the Daily Telegraph’s revelation throws a potential spanner in the works, despite the league’s insistence that neutral grounds is the only way the season can be fairly completed.
Brighton chief executive Paul Barber has made his feelings publicly known and said in a statement on Saturday evening: “We do of course understand that in the very difficult circumstances we are facing that every option must be considered.
“But that should only be when safe to do so for all concerned and, if and when we reach that point, we are not in favour of playing our remaining matches at neutral venues.
“Clearly, we must all be prepared to accept some compromises, and we fully appreciate why playing behind closed doors is very likely to be a necessary compromise to play our remaining games while continuing to fully support the government’s efforts to contain the spread of coronavirus.
“But at this critical point in the season playing matches in neutral venues has, in our view, potential to have a material effect on the integrity of the competition.
“Five of our nine remaining matches due to be played at the Amex – all five matches are very difficult but four are against some of the biggest clubs in European football.
“The disadvantages of us not playing the league’s top teams in our home stadium and in familiar surroundings, even with 27,000 Albion fans very unlikely to be present at the Amex, are very obvious.
“Clearly, we must accept there may also be some benefit from playing our remaining four away matches at neutral venues but the fixture list simply isn’t equally balanced at this stage of the season, and we didn’t play our first 29 matches of the season in this way. So, in our opinion one thing doesn’t cancel out the other.”
There are 92 fixtures still to play in the Premier League, with Villa – who sit 19th – one of four teams who have 10 games left instead of nine.
The league is under fierce financial pressure to conclude the 2019-20 schedule due to its broadcasting contracts.
Failing to fulfil them would leave owing in excess of £750million back to the likes of Sky and BT, which on top of the significant drop in match-day and commercial revenue could have a crippling affect on some of the league’s clubs.
Fourteen votes are needed in favour of the neutral venue proposal for it to pass but the Premier League is said to be anxious that they need clubs, players and staff on board.
The other 14 clubs are said to be generally in favour of the move, despite the removal of home advantage – even without fans present.
Despite Villa being in such a precarious position, chief executive Christian Purslow is thought to have offered a balanced reaction to the compromise of giving up home games to finish the season.
Chelsea manager Frank Lampard meanwhile insists it would “not sit well” with him if Premier League players and staff get COVID-19 tests while frontline healthcare workers are left in short supply.
Lampard told BT Sport: “The health and safety of players and staff is huge.
“We play a contact sport we’re all desperate to see – it’s a form of escapism, to watch football, play and train – but how are we not going to put the players at risk within that?”
“The other issue is testing. We will probably have a minimum of 70 or 80 staff at Cobham [Chelsea’s training ground] if we’re going to restart training.
“It’s right that we test regularly, but when we’re looking around the world – I think it’s important for football to take its place.
“I don’t know the testing numbers for NHS and care workers, people who are doing these incredible jobs over the last two months.
“I don’t think it would sit well, not just with me, but with anybody, if we didn’t make sure that people who are in that frontline are getting tested.”
The Guardian report, however, that the Premier League will look to invest in readily-available testing machines that can test a maximum of seven employees per day.
Costing £36,000 each, there is not said to be great demand from the NHS for such technology due to the costs involved and the inability to test people en masse.
