diegomarahenry

Japan came out of a lockdown and are now back in one, The Czech republic have been in a lockdown longer, citizens are required to wear a mask out doors at all times, they have a population larger than Scotland, with many residents living in communal buildings in the major cities like Scotland as well as rural communities but have a fraction of the cases, under 200 deaths (Scotland 893). They are still in lock-down and are hoping to move to the track and isolate phase in the coming weeks with the help of a phone app. They had 57 new cases yesterday, Scotland had 411. So I would say that this is how far we are away from ending a lock-down.

A hairdresser could wear a face shield and gloves. Sanitise equipment between uses. But is a hairdresser likely to want to take the risk, touching dozens of people a day? I'd doubt it, mine closed a week before they were told to.

The Jenner institute vaccine is the most likely at the moment and they haven't started clinical trials yet. To mass-produce a vaccine, it can take 3-4 months to get all raw materials in place, these are not things that are likely to be on a shelf somewhere. Most likely they will need to be grown or cultivated first. Best case, a vaccine will be issued to front line health staff this year, rolled out to high risk quarter one next year would be my guess.

Legally they probably have to but they could leave it up to the individuals to claim it. I think you get about three games gratis on season tickets so essentially people are losing out on one game they have paid for.

Will GTF day be brought forward this year ?

14 would either mean to many games or not enough, unless they are planning a split after two rounds of fixtures and then playing each other once, post split giving 32 games. Still doesn't give four old firm games. Either they scrap promotion and relegation this year and pay the money for the current league placings, or they promote all teams in play-off places.

If Rangers story turns out to be a fabrication, do they get hit with a points deduction ? That would be one way to resolve it.

They mentioned this on Radio Scotland today, clubs will still have to pay wages until they get the cash from the government, many will have to pay the 20% shortfall because that is what the players are contracted to earn, along with non-playing staff.

No, but someone was using the lockdown period in China as a projection on when it would be lifted here. We are still on the rise, not testing at a required scale and still have a fairly lax lockdown compared to other countries that are handling this better.

We are due to pass China's numbers in a shorter period of time with the amount of cases still rising in the UK, we are nowhere near the peak of this yet, maybe we will be in three weeks but I doubt we will be relaxing any measures before June at the earliest. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

I'll be honest and say I haven't given this part much thought. However, with the junior teams entering the pyramid system, it wouldn't be hard to promote more teams in to the league.

Because it limits the fixtures to 30 shaving a minimum of a month off of a season we don't know when it will start or end, that will also need to accommodate three cup competitions, international breaks and European fixtures.

Top 16, Championship 16 and league one 16. No relegation, promote all in play-off positions including Highland/Lowland league. Relegate 4 and promote 2 the following two seasons. Next season cant over-run because of the Euros, The following year a world cup to accommodate. We don't know when next season will start. One of the projections from this week was October. So we either reconstruct now or end up gubbing 3 seasons for not doing it.

The unfairest part of this is enforced relegation, Where clubs still have a realistic chance to stay up. This shouldn't happen, as funny as that would be. Ayr haven't been out of the play-off places all season and I haven't heard one Ayr fan complain about us missing the chance to go up through the play-off. The fact that Dundee and Inverness have potentially blocked this is bizarre. Unless real reconstruction is on the table, there is no option but to accept this. There has been no details leaked of offers of increasing leagues so we can assume that isn't happening. I can only assume that there are a few board members at clubs not paying attention to the news.

There is no certainty on what next season will look like, taking in to account three cup competitions, that all have sponsors and TV deals plus international windows. The SPFL need to look at a shorter format to the season. Planning for 36 or 38 games right now while potentially still playing games from this season as well is misguided.

Could offer it "free", some might be willing to pay. I assume that the club have had no inquiries about a refund on season tickets so far? Fans understand the situation and I think the majority would pay money if they get something out of it.

Pay per view would have to cost less than a match ticket, there are upsides and downsides. Where you would get more away fans buying access than would normally travel, you will likely have a household that would normally pay per head, would pay for one viewing. The lack of atmosphere might make some people tune out of it. There would be reduced overheads on policing, stewarding and matchday costs but reduced income from food purchases, Program sales (a downloadable subscription package?) and casual shop purchases. You could have more targeted advertising than normal due to the almost literally captive audience. I think it would be manageable on a small scale.

The start of next season is almost going to be like the American sports draft. All the players out of contract in May, clubs not wanting to sign anyone until they know when they will start again, Once the green light is given it'll be a free-for-all but no one will have any cash to spend. Clubs that have done business early, like Thistle signing Doc on a pre-contract will be regretting it now. Or any club that signed players at Christmas on 18 month and two year deals.

16 team top flight, no relegation. Join the remainder of the championship and league one. 30 games so a shorter season, if it starts before September, plan a winter break. Teams not going to warm weather training, play out Challenge Cup and League cup games, early rounds of the Scottish cup. End in may. four down next season, two up. Or, No relegation, or promotion, award cash payments to clubs for final league placings and award the trophies.

I wouldn't promote or relegate anyone, they either re-structure or they give out the prize money for league places, even award the championship trophy but to relegate teams with a lifeline for survival is unfair considering the financial hit the clubs will already be taking. Awarding teams at the top of the league the Championship purse should be compensation enough in times like these.

The current situation is that the virus hasn't peaked so until that happens, I doubt anything will become clearer. If you look at the amount of cases compared to population, it is relatively low but until they can test for people to show if they have had it or can't get it on a much larger scale, I can't see the lockdown being lifted. There would always be a danger that there could be a second or third spike. Maybe regionally, things could be relaxed but from a football point of view, you would still have numbers of people using main public transport hubs.

They may vote on no promotion or relegation, middle ground, give clubs the money they need Clubs would get the money now for the league placing to keep them going, rather than building for next season whenever that is, its looking like closer to Christmas than the second week in July at the moment. Even when it does start up again there would still be concerns about the potential of 200k people congregating every weekend and travelling over the country. The rule being relaxed about games being played and televised at 3pm on a Saturday might allow football to return sooner though.

Watching the Sunderland doc on netflix yesterday, The transfer window they were reportedly looking at Shankland, panic bought Will Grigg for three million. So I have doubts they were ever seriously looking at Shankland or their scouting network up here is dreadful.

Coventry Citys 2 tone anniversary strip has been a good seller I believe, could it be something like that? A Burns type kit or an Ayr skyline

Wen I first went out to Prague not long after the split with Slovakia, I spoke to someone I was working with about the end of Communism and how the country had changed since. He said that since the revolution they have started an evolution. At the time I thought this was a bit of a wanky thing to say but it has made more sense over the years. The Czech people I worked with all talked the country down, they thought the whole independence project would end ultimately in failure and the Russians would be back in one form or another. I get the impression that over the last 5 years they have become more proud of their country and what it has become and less attracted to being attached to a superpower again. I have always found Czech folk to be mostly pleasant (more so Slovaks) But they seem to have more volatile people than the UK. From what I saw of foreigners in CZ, they seemed to have an opinion that Czech folk were all skint and were desperate for their cash and treated them almost like slaves. Some tourists, mostly English, Russian and American were the most arrogant b*****ds on earth. One of my Czech friends worked in an Irish bar and would be offered a move to the UK on a daily basis from someone on a stag party. Because a life living with a plumber from Dagenham would obviously be better than the one she currently has.