Anon

With the EFL season looking highly likely to be disrupted, which of the methods would be most likely/suitable: 1) Play the remaining games behind closed doors, costing clubs millions. 2) End the season as is, causing outrage particularly in the playoff and relegation places. 3) Declare the season null and void.

SC: There’s also option 4, which would be to suspend games altogether until further notice and aim to pick up the postponed fixtures down the line somewhere.

The issue with that is that it can’t be done indefinitely: we have Euro 2020 scheduled for the summer and if games are postponed for weeks on end then you end up butting up against that tournament. It will be very interesting to see what, if anything, Uefa do with that tournament to help out its members on this front - not to mention the Champions League and the Europa League.

If it were up to me would be minded to go ahead with behind-closed-doors fixtures for the time being, making sure to ban fans from congregating outside stadia as we saw in Paris last night. I would also lift the 3pm broadcasting blackout, but the suggestion is that would not happen. Quite why we need a measure in place to protect attendances for empty grounds is beyond me but there we go.



However that may become unfeasible: we’ve already had Nottingham Forest, Arsenal, Real Madrid and Juventus forced to go into self-isolation because they have come into contact with the virus. At that point a blanket suspension seems inevitable.

Options 2 and 3 are currently unthinkable but if the situation continues to escalate and goes on for a long time it may become a very real conversation. We can only hope it doesn’t come to that.

I really highly recommend listening to the always-excellent Set Piece Menu podcast that came out yesterday, which covers all angles in depth.