English football has taken a baby step towards finding some resolution to the coronavirus crisis with the announcement that the 24 clubs of League Two have agreed to end their season.
The teams of the fourth tier voted by 20-4 that the league table will be decided on an un-weighted points-per-game basis – meaning there will be no adjustments derived from the ratio of home and away fixtures different clubs were still to play.
There will still be the play-offs to come to decide who gets the final promotion spot, and the matter of relegation to the National League may yet prove to be less straightforward to settled, entailing as it does a potentially catastrophic drop out of the Football League for one unlucky side.
The ease with which the decision was reached relative to the Premier League and Championship is largely to do with the special circumstances faced by clubs at the lower end of the Football League. Playing matches without supporters inside stadiums would mean teams would be facing significant financial losses for each home game they stage, not to mention the costs involved in providing for the special coronavirus provisions that would be necessary in order to restart, such as mandatory player testing.
League One has had a tougher time coming to a decision. Owing to the vastly differing ambitions and resources amongst clubs in the third tier, opinion is spilt on the best way to move forward, with a final decision yet to be reached.
We’ve taken a look at the winners and losers – plus those who still have a fight on in order to protect their interests – from a day of ayes and nays in the Football League.
League Two – Winners
It’s good news for Swindon Town in particular who will overtake Crewe Alexandra at the top of the league, courtesy of the points-per-game calculation (Town had a game in hand on the Alex prior to suspension of play and were behind them only on goal difference). Plymouth Argyle will also get a happy ending, they’ll cement third place and take the final automatic promotion spot.
Below that, the play-offs will remain much as the league currently looks, with Exeter City, Cheltenham Town, Colchester United and Northampton Town going at it for the last promotion spot, though exactly when that will be and on what terms has not yet been indicated.
League Two – Losers
This is where it gets a little more contentious. Teams at the foot of the league had already received a boost this season with the decision back in September that there would only be one relegation place rather than the usual two, in order to even out of the leagues after League One Bury were expelled.
But Friday’s meeting ended with clubs of League Two backing a motion to have no relegation at all from the league. An EFL statement said: “Clubs asked for consideration to be given to suspending relegation to the National League for 2019-20 as a result of circumstances created where fixtures cannot be completed.
“No commitments were made in this respect and the board will now consider the implications of the division’s preferred approach at their next meeting.”
Stevenage, who occupy the league’s bottom place and would do so still after a points-per-game calculation, are the only club to be directly affected by the decision, whichever way it should swing.
The club’s owner Phil Wallace gave a pretty comprehensive summary of the picture across the division. He told BBC Sport: “My preference is to finish the league so we have the opportunity to play our way out of trouble.
“We have 10 games to play and are three points behind, with a game in hand. Why should I think it was not possible to get out of it?
“The League Two clubs cannot decide this. We can only tell the EFL of their indicative position but that is the collective view.
“It would cost us £140,000 for the tests, we would have to bring players out of furlough and comply with a 47-page health and safety document regarding sterilisation of stadiums etc. I don’t know what this would mean for the National League.”
Simply – unless the Football League and National League were to agree to some shuffling of the numbers of teams in each division next season, there would be no promotion from the fifth tier this season, with Barrow the team leading the way who would be set to miss out.
League One – Winners & Losers
This is trickier, since no conclusions have been reached today, nor are we any closer to knowing exactly how things are going to be finished up in the third tier.
There were six clubs – Peterborough United, Oxford United, Ipswich Town, Portsmouth, Sunderland and Fleetwood Town – that pre-empted Friday’s meeting and issued a joint statement re-affirming their commitment to completing the season on the pitch, and not, as they put it, at the whim of “a computer.”
The full statement, from Posh chairman Darragh MacAnthony, said: “We have no desire for voiding the season, points-per-game scenarios or letting a computer decide our footballing fate.
“For our fans/staff and for the integrity of our sport, we are all looking forward to completing our pending fixtures/season under guidance from the EFL at a time it is deemed safe to do so.”
If you had been asked to pick six clubs at the start of yesterday who might object to an early termination of the league and a points-per-game solution, these were the six most people would have picked. Oxford, Posh, Fleetwood and Pompey are the four currently in the play-off places, none are more than three points off the top two, whereas Ipswich and Sunderland are desperate to return to the Championship at any cost.
Conspicuously silent but predictably so were Coventry City and Rotherham United, for whom promotion would be assured if the EFL called time on the league here and now.
It is, rather understandably, this divergence in interests that has made League One such a difficult problem to find common ground within, and will likely cause further headaches for all involved over the coming weeks before the matter is settled.
