The owner of English Premier League club Brighton & Hove Albion Tony Bloom has said that there should not be any relegation if the current season, which now stands postponed due to global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, gets cancelled.
Earlier, a BBC report had stated that the Premier League clubs likely to put June 30 as the deadline to decide if the 2019-20 season would continue or be scrapped. Such a decision is likely to be taken as June 30 marks the end and beginning of several player contracts and sponsorship deals.
Meanwhile, even though Brighton stand two points clear of the relegation area, the club owner said that if the season had to be cancelled points-per-match could be calculated to decide the winner but the same shouldn’t be applied to relegate teams.
“I don’t foresee a situation if the season’s not played out, that teams will get relegated on a points-per-game basis. I just don’t think it’s fathomable that a team which is not allowed to play out the season, may lose out on 0.2 of a point based on this system,” Goal.com quoted Bloom as saying.
“Also it does not take into account the strength of the teams you have not played. You may get a title winner, obviously, Liverpool deserve it, you may use that criteria for European qualification but I do not see how anyone can vote for that, certainly the percent needed, for teams to get relegated,” he added.
Liverpool stand 25 points cleared at the top and it was highly unlikely that anyone could have toppled them, while Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Norwich City were languishing in the relegation zone when Premier League was stopped.
The Premier League extended the suspension of the 2019/20 season beyond May and said it “will only return when it is safe and appropriate to do so” after a lockdown, like in the most parts of Europe, was imposed in the United Kingdom to contain the spread of the deadly virus which has already killed more than 1.6 lakh people worldwide.
The earlier suspension was dated till April 30 and the officials were hoping to resume the season by the first week of May. The latest development has come without a date and it has been said that restart date is being reviewed, with all the stakeholders, by keeping a close track of how the COVID-19 situation develops in the country.