West Ham will be among the clubs voting against the suggestion that the final games of the season- if indeed it proves possible to play them at all – should take place on neutral grounds.
A June 9 kick off is hoped for and a Premier League proposal is thought to include the proposal that matches are played at Wembley, Twickenham, St Georges Park or a group of League grounds.
But with the Hammers involved in two crucial home games against relegation rivals Watford and Aston Villa, which are too close to call for punters using their 1xbet bonus, they are unwilling to sacrifice home advantage in such crucial circumstances.
And with Uefa giving clubs a May 25 deadline to declare whether they plan to complete their seasons the issue seriously complicates any plan the Premier League bosses plan to put forward.
They may avoid a vote on the matter and ask instead for a for a show of hands on likely voting intentions but either way it’s highly improbable they will get a 14 club majority on the question of neutral grounds.
A highly placed London Stadium source said simply: “We would prefer to play our home games at the London Stadium – simple.”
With the other six teams at the bottom – Norwich City, Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Watford ourselves, Brighton all likely to vote against, and top clubs like Manchester City, Chelsea, Man United and Wolves looking for home advantage to help their European qualification causes – any show of hands or vote looks certain to be lost.
The argument against decalring the current season null and void is that it is “not fair”
However for many years we have lived with the promotion play-offs which are also unfair – we were the beneficiaries of the unfairness when we were promoted under Pardew via the play-offs after finishing sixth – and only managing that because Reading messed up even more than us over the last games of the season (on the other hand we definitely deserved to be promoted under BFS since we were miles ahead of the club who finished 4th)
I think that any notion of “fairness” disappears in the face of the corona virus and others have pointed out the risk of having to have players go into quarantine
I believe that we should get through this global crisis and thereafter think about the enxt season – whenever that might be. People have likened fighting the virus to a war – I dont think that when the league was stopped by World War II people speculated when football would resume
Wartime stoppage did not have to take advertising and sponsorship into account . The addition of all the money has ruined football as a beautiful game. This could be a great chance to give the game back to the people.