The Premier League postponement debacle
The Premier League have cancelled 22 Premier League games to date, with the most recent cancellation being the highly anticipated North London derby between Arsenal and Sp*rs, as Arsenal were struggling to field the minimum requirement of 13 fully fit players. However, the decision was criticised by Tottenham’s board as they said they “do not believe it was the intent to deal with player availability unrelated to COVID. We may now be seeing the unintended consequences of this rule. It is important to have clarity and consistency on the application of the rule.” The cancellations have clearly benefitted some teams more than others, making fans increasingly frustrated at the lack of consistency shown by the Premier League. Brentford vs Arsenal kicked-off the 2021/22 Premier League season as requests from the Arsenal board to postpone the match due to a COVID-19 outbreak at the London Colney were rejected. However, Liverpool had their request to postpone the first leg of the League Cup semi-final against Arsenal accepted after having 14 positive COVID tests, of which 13 proved to be false positives. To put that into perspective, the chances of winning the EuroMillions on Friday are higher than getting 10 false positives, let alone 13. Make no mistake, this is blatant cheating – they don’t get their tests from the local offie or Pie Dave, they have first-class medical staff providing these tests.
On January 26th, the Premier League finally decided that each team would need at least 4 COVID cases in order to be considered for a postponement, however why this decision is being made so late on into the season is bewildering. Since the start of the season, the official handbook itself stated that they can “only permit the rearrangement or postponement of a league match in exceptional circumstances” which is unsurprisingly ambiguous. It stated that decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis for each individual club and there are no set rules to determine whether a fixture will go ahead or be cancelled. Fans are clearly justified in their anger, especially as many games have been cancelled at very short notice, none more noteworthy than Aston Villa vs Burnley, called off just hours before kick-off leaving travelling fans furious. The contrariety is of no surprise to any followers of the Premier League – they are yet to have sorted out the officiating inconsistencies that have plagued the top-flight division over the last decade. Nonetheless, the postponement debacle has certainly raised eyebrows.
With an already jam-packed fixture list for the season, it’s becoming an increasing concern as to where these fixtures will be slotted in, and unsurprisingly we are yet to have been given any clarity from the Premier League. There’s also a question to be asked of whether it is fair that signings made in the January transfer window should be allowed to play in fixtures that were due to be played before. Either way, it is clear having one rule for some and another for others has been unfair. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted fixtures for over 2 years now, so the fact there is still little clarity on this issue is laughable. Former Celtic boss Neil Lennon highlighted how it was inevitable that teams would try and bend the rules (or rather lack of) around postponements if they could, suggesting the Premier League should’ve anticipated this.
It is clear definitive rules need to be made in order to ease the frustration of individual postponements and silence worries of corruption, but more needs to be done to make sure no team unfairly benefits from being able to postpone a game.
Image Credit: Premier League
