Jump to content

Coronavirus in sport


Lineker

Recommended Posts

ITV has started its Euro '96 uploads, beginning with England v Switzerland. It's the full broadcast too, which is great. I always enjoy watching the pundits analyse matters as they happen, rather than working with the benefit of hindsight.

Seeing a nine-year-old Kasper Schmeichel as one of the mascots is really interesting. He was with Brian Laudrup's son, Nicolai, who obviously didn't enjoy the same success as Kasper did. You've also got a pre-PM Tony Blair in the front row, along with Kevin Keegan and Alex Ferguson sharing a hug and future England managers Glenn Hoddle, Roy Hodgson and Gareth Southgate getting interviewed in different contexts.

It's strange because I remember the tournament quite well, yet it seems like a completely different time. As I said, watching it all as it happened is a lot of fun.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Euro 96 is the last big tournament I didn't watch. I think in general its reputation outside England - where it's obviously tied up with Three Lions and "cool Britannia" and all that - is that it was an incredibly dull tournament. You just need to look at the number of games that went to golden goal or penalty shootouts to see why that might be the case. I enjoyed rewatching England v Scotland though. That Scotland team wasn't as bad as I had been led to believe. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, metalman said:

Euro 96 is the last big tournament I didn't watch. I think in general its reputation outside England - where it's obviously tied up with Three Lions and "cool Britannia" and all that - is that it was an incredibly dull tournament. You just need to look at the number of games that went to golden goal or penalty shootouts to see why that might be the case. I enjoyed rewatching England v Scotland though. That Scotland team wasn't as bad as I had been led to believe. 

Obviously, they actually qualified for a tournament.

Also, I found it quite interesting that compared to modern day commentators correctly pronouncing things like Spanish z's Brian Moore was pronouncing Stephane Henchoz' name phonetically. I guess it's before he went to Liverpool, but it did sound jarring, and reminded me of his Pro Evo alter ego Hemloz for the first time in years...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Australian Football League is back June 11th

Behind closed doors like everyone else and with multiple teams temporarily moving states to avoid travel lockdown laws.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Admin
Quote

A professional football team in South Korea has apologised after “mannequins” it used as substitute fans during a match at the weekend turned out to be sex dolls.

The K-League club FC Seoul said the dolls, which had been dotted around stands currently off-limits to supporters due to the coronavirus outbreak, had been ordered inadvertently after a “misunderstanding” with the supplier.

Earlier this month the K-League became the first major football league to hold matches since the start of the pandemic, with the season’s opening game watched by a worldwide audience of fans starved of live football.

But FC Seoul’s attempt to bring a touch of realism to Sunday’s match against Gwangju FC backfired after social media users noticed that the mannequins looked more like sex dolls.

Some pointed out that several were holding posters carrying the name of the popular live streamer BJ Chaero – reportedly the physical inspiration for the dolls’ design – according to the Koreaboo website.

The club said it had been the victim of a mix-up, insisting it had checked with the supplier and received assurances that the dolls were not intended for sexual use.

Photographs taken at the largely empty stadium showed about 10 dolls spaced out among seats in front of life-size cardboard cutouts of the team’s players.

“We would like to apologise to the fans,” FC Seoul said in a statement on Instagram. “We are deeply sorry.”

It added: “Our intention was to do something light-hearted in these difficult times. We will think hard about what we need to do to ensure that something like this never happens again.”

Several social media users weren’t convinced by the explanation. “There must have been a countless number of people involved in getting that approved, shipped, dressed, and seated,” Koreaboo quoted one as saying. “In that process, no one thought to question the visuals of these mannequins?”

The Sports Seoul website said that with so many football fans overseas now following K-League matches, “There are concerns this will bring international disgrace.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • Admin
Quote

A group of clubs, led by Liverpool, will argue against paying a £330m rebate to Sky and other broadcasters at a meeting to discuss the matter on Thursday, despite the Premier League’s recommendation that it should be accepted.

The finance directors of all 20 clubs were informed on Wednesday of the sum by the Premier League, whose head of broadcasting, Paul Molnar, is leading negotiations. Sky is the prime broadcaster with rights to show 128 live matches a season, followed by BT Sport with 52, and Amazon with 20.

Because of the rights terms, 50% of money is divided equally with 25% awarded for live appearances and the other 25% dependent on league finishing position. This means the top six Premier League clubs will have to pay more back – around £30m each – compared to the approximate £10.75m by the other 14. Broadcasters have suggested staggering payments of the rebate over the next two seasons to help clubs hit financially by the pandemic.

Liverpool’s chairman, Tom Werner, questioned the rebate at a previous conference with the Premier League executive and he will do so again when the meeting commences on Thursday at 11am, with growing dismay at the size of sums involved.

A rebate is being sought because of contractual obligations going unfulfilled following the suspension of football in England in mid-March. The broadcasters also argue that given the remainder of the season will be behind closed doors should it, as hoped, be played out next month, the value of the product they have paid many millions for will be devalued.

Liverpool, along with a number of other clubs – Tottenham and West Ham among them – dispute this idea. They believe fans not being able to attend games will increase the premium on live televised matches, with interest in any game shown heightened by the paucity of other live sports. The temporary lifting of the 3pm blackout on matches in the UK means the broadcasters will be able to show more live and clubs believe the value of their investment will increase.

As things stand, Sky and BT have rights to 47 remaining games – the other 45 will be shared, with Sky wanting to broadcast 32, BT Sport wanting to show eight and the remaining five being split between Amazon and the BBC.

The desire of broadcasters to leverage dressing-room and technical-area cameras will also receive pushback from the clubs, with the stance being that if agreed now it will be difficult to deny similar access when the next rights sales occur.

Despite opposition from some clubs to paying the £330m rebate, David Kogan, who was the Premier League’s chief media rights adviser from 1998 to 2015 and a key architect of its global financial success, insists the full amount will have to be met. He told the Guardian: “The clubs are going to have to pay it whatever it is and there will be a formula that will be followed. Sooner or later they’re just going to have to pay the money out. They’ll have insurance, I imagine, to do that.”

Clubs will already be more concerned, Kogan believes, over whether or not the next round of TV rights, due to be negotiated this year, will match the £9bn generated for the three-year period up until 2022 given the fallout from the current crisis. “What is the Premier League’s capacity to earn another £9bn-£10bn over a three-year period?” he said.

“First of all, there’s the UK broadcasters: why would Sky, now owned by Comcast, or BT, necessarily want to spend £5bn on these rights when there’s very little competition? Secondly, there’s 200 other overseas broadcasters. If they’ve been affected by the pandemic, which they will have been, why are they going to go on bidding 20% more they’ve been doing up until now?

“If the Premier League isn’t going to bring in that money, where is the flexibility to find new cash? Ticket sales? Clubs are already costing their fans a fortune. Hospitality? It’s already been priced to the max. So the only way that clubs can then survive is by looking at costs. And the massive costs are agents’ fees and players, and at that point you’re affecting the product.”

New ideas may have to be considered, Kogan believes, to keep broadcasting deals on a par with what preceded the pandemic. “Saturday 3pm has been the holy grail of football rights selling for 50 years – [showing games now] might set a precedent,” he said. “Whatever the history used to be, money is a huge incentive for change and it’s not just the PL [that’s] going to lose money because of the pandemic, the FA will, too. I wouldn’t count it out at all.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No idea how serious talks got, but I did see headlines that the government were "DEMANDING" games were shown free upon its return.

I have Sky and BT anyway so I should be set for most of it. I only had a free trial for Amazon while the festive games were on so I'd more than likely miss any that they pick up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Liverpool and co. are spot on that the matches will be better value for the broadcasters rather than less. I went from "well the clubs should probably pay that money back" to "Fuck Sky and BT". They want their money back AND the rights to show more matches? What a ridiculous expectation.

I'd be very interested in any games shown by the BBC or on Amazon, however.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There'll absolutely be more eyes on the games than usual. I think even a game like Norwich v Burnley will attract far more than usual, partly because people can't really do much else, and partly because they've just missed football.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I found it baffling that they wanted money back. I suppose putting it against a Sky subscription model they've probably lost a months fees (from people arsed enough to cancel) but they can't possibly argue the games are less of a selling point. End of any season is a damp squib bar any remaining battle at the top or bottom, and while I've always argued that empty stadiums due to fans been priced out and treated as second best to TV would kill the league, empty stadiums for a pandemic is slightly different. Hell if they get away with that I'm asking for my money back whenever I watch a 0-0.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. To learn more, see our Privacy Policy