which is why the TV issue isn't an insurmountable problem.

you could keep the bulk of the money flows in this season (to preserve financial viability) and reduce future seasons to compensate (which the clubs can plan for).

There's a legal bunfight if you relegate teams based on current positions (so unlikely to happen).

There might be a bunfight if you don't promote anyone (but I can't see how even Leeds can prove that they were destined for promotion, so what are they suing over? I think that's overblown).

There will be some wrangling over current sponsorship agreements, but by and large those will be straightforward to resolve where you have long term relationships.

So closing this season is perfectly feasible (as we can see at lower levels in football and rugby, and the Bundesliga which has the same issues as the EPL).

If you drag this season out and compress/curtailnext season or any competitions next season, you still have to deal with issues around sponsorship agreements and some impacts on the TV deal as they're getting a compressed window instead of months of exposure (might be a wash if viewing figures compensate).

And you can add:

- Logistics of trying to run all of this in an environment that will still be under some form of lockdown/social distancing controls
- Messed up player contracts & transfers
- player welfare issues with little or no pre-season
- future sponsorship deals all having to be re-written
- TV deals being affected by the shifting dates
- issues around any competitions that are cut to make the calendar work
- No guarantee the delays will still let you finish. If they have their compressed camp idea, a few cases of Covid and that goes right out the window mid competition and you are back to square one but having screwed next season too

Cleanest from a legal perspective is to end this season and deal with the fall out from one canceled season. The alternative is dealing with the fallout from two affected seasons.

Posted By: CWC, Mar 30, 09:17:05