Pre-season training is set to resume at Lennoxtown, and that is good news for all of our supporters and for the club itself.
The ten-in-a-row campaign is just about underway. We’re relying on the global health emergency being somewhat under control by the start of August, and it might well be … but the problems we have are going to be with us for a while.
Everyone knows that there will be no swift return to normality. Even if a vaccine were available right now, and a way out of this was clear to us all tomorrow, distribution issues mean that it might be another six months to a year until everyone who needs it has it.
Most people want football to resume on schedule, but how many are seriously committed to it?
A lot of clubs are dreading the coming campaign, and they fear they might not be able to get through it.
Two, including our own, have bought coronavirus testing machines … these will be essential to making sure that the players and staff are safe.
No other club has purchased one, including the one at Ibrox.
How ready are these clubs going to be? How ready do they want to be?
There is a danger here that should be so self-evident it feels daft even to point it out; what’s to stop clubs throwing up all kinds of roadblocks to the resumption of football if it doesn’t suit them for games to be played? What’s to stop some from trying to halt the campaign once games are underway?
I’m not saying this would happen … but it could.
It just seems to me that some of the clubs are dragging their feet in terms of getting the pieces into place.
The league campaign is scheduled, but that doesn’t mean that it will start on time. The Scottish Cup is pencilled in to finish, but already Hearts are making it clear that they might take the governing bodies to court; what does that do to the schedule?
Celtic clearly wants to be ready for the resumption of football.
But who else is going to be quite as prepared for the matches to kick off?
The virtual season ticket plan means that our club will be well supported regardless, but what of other clubs who might not be able to achieve the same goals? There is a very real danger that the season will start but not finish.
There is a risk of clubs falling deep into administration along the way. Some might not come out of it.
We’re still a long way from knowing how this is going to end up, and whilst I feel a sense of excitement that we have a provisional start date for the next campaign I am concerned, in part, by the lack of preparation at some of the clubs out with our own.
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