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‘Don’t see football resuming anytime soon’ - Former Spain midfielder Gaizka Mendieta

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | ByKaran Prashant Saxena
Apr 30, 2020 01:23 PM IST

Speaking to Hindustan Times in an exclusive telephonic chat from London, the former La Liga star says: “In Italy, Germany, Spain, people are still not allowed to freely go out on the streets. How can you think about players sharing the same area?”

With the football world in a state of flux due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, debates are surging over whether it is the right time to resume the sport behind closed doors. Former Spain midfielder Gaizka Mendieta says it is too soon for the football to resume. With the number of cases rising in Spain, Italy, Germany, and UK, the top-level European leagues came to a halt in March - with a lot of games in the season still to be played out. But despite Serie A, Bundesliga, and La Liga mulling whether the remainder of the season could be completed behind closed doors starting from May, Mendieta insists the footballing world is not ready to come out of lockdown.

File image of Gaizka Mendieta.(Twitter)
File image of Gaizka Mendieta.(Twitter)

Speaking to Hindustan Times in an exclusive telephonic chat from London, the former La Liga star says: “In Italy, Germany, Spain, people are still not allowed to freely go out on the streets. How can you think about players sharing the same area?”

He further adds that he does not think football can resume in May. “I don’t see football resuming until... I don’t know. Maybe we are more likely to see football being resumed in June or July. I am not saying it will be, but it is more likely to do so than in May.”

Speaking about the measures that are required to be taken before thinking about the start of the season, the former midfielder added: “It will take at least a month or two to test all players and to ensure that it is safe for them to be in the same area. Football is about contact - how can you not play football without contact. May is definitely too early. I don’t know when is the right time to play football. We even need to think about when the teams could start training,” he says.

Spain sports minister recently said that he does not think the football can resume till summer. The problem the delay poses to leagues across the world is how to decide the fate of the ongoing season - to declare it null and void or to accept the current table as its final form. With Premier League season, it seems pretty clear that Liverpool will go on to win the league if the season resumes as they are currently at the top, 25 points ahead of 2nd-placed Manchester City in the table. But in La Liga, the points margin is a lot closer between the top six teams, with Barcelona leading by just two points to Real Madrid.

Mendieta, who made 33 appearances for Barcelona on loan from Lazio in 2003-04 season, says that leagues would want to finish out the rest of the season, but might not have the time to do so.

“I think the leagues would like to finish the season and play out the remaining games, but it depends on how long they are given to finish it. Most leagues will try to wait until the decision is made by higher organisations, and to see if they have time to finish it. Then, it is up to the leagues to decide how they want to end the season - if they cannot play out the remaining games,” he says.

Mendieta adds declaring the season null would not be fair to teams at the top position. “If they declare the league null and void, it will feel unfair for everyone. The clubs who thought they could have won the league will not be happy. The clubs who could have been promoted will not be happy. If you do not declare it void, how can you go about it? It’s a tough decision to be made.

“It is not only about the distance between the first and the second - but also about other decisions such as promotions and relegations. So, you have to decide - if void, which format, if not void, which format - do you want to play a smaller league or playoffs in order to decide who is winning it and who is not winning it?” he adds.

Mendieta adds that all the leagues need to come up with a unified solution and decide whether to accept the current state of the table as the final form or declare it void, irrespective of the point difference across the table.

“You cannot just say Liverpool win the league just because it has so much distance - because then what you will do with Champions League qualifications and the relegations - there is not such a difference there. You need to establish that the league stays like that, irrespective of the difference of points, or maybe the league is declared void, regardless of the difference of points. You have to apply it for every position in the league, to every league across the world,” he says.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also led to football clubs deducting salaries of players and staff. Some clubs have also furloughed their staff to meet up with economic losses. Mendieta says that the pandemic will have a huge impact on the transfer market in the coming seasons.

“The salary deductions and furloughing of staff will definitely have an impact because the players’ contracts have to be renegotiated. The clubs are renegotiating contracts with sponsors and broadcasters. The economic dynamics of clubs will be different after this ends. The clubs have to be more cautious about signing players - how much money they want to spend,” he says.

Already there are discussions in cricket of how the measures to curb the pandemic will affect the behaviour in sport. The bowlers usually rub the ball with saliva to soften the grip - but there are debates surging of whether it will be stopped once the pandemic ends. A similar sort of discussion arises in terms of footballer where players often hurl up together to celebrate goals. Will there be a change in the way players celebrate goals after the pandemic ends? Mendieta does not feel so.

“I don’t think there will be changes in celebrations. Because if players cannot touch each other, then they should not be allowed to play. Because to play, you have to tackle, which requires contact. If the players are not allowed contact and there is not 100 percent security and safety, in terms of health, then there will not be any football match,” he says.

He further breaks down the resumption of football into three crucial steps: “First, you have to be allowed to be in the same room with a lot of people. Then contact between these people in the same room has to be allowed. Then these people have to be allowed contact with other people from other teams. These steps have to be followed before we can see 22 players on the field. We definitely have not reached there yet - it is definitely going to take longer than a month to reach there,” he signs off.

(Sports fans can visit the official Facebook page of Sony Pictures Sports Network, @SonySportsIndia and watch ‘Sony Ten Pit Stop’ to catch footballers and other sports personalities connect with fans in a never before seen avatar)

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