Scott Brown has been speaking as part of Celtic’s build up to the Glasgow Derby on Sunday with increasing pressure around European football for governing bodies to ban the attendance of supporters and consider suspending all fixtures, as reported by The Daily Record.
With Europa League and Champions League fixtures already affected and a UEFA led conference call with all member organisations arranged for Tuesday, it doesn’t look good for the season to be completed in “normal” fashion.
When the skipper was asked about the prospect of a disrupted season, he said:
“If it ends, it stays at it is. We are in a good position but we just need to focus on this game on Sunday.”
“The main thing is we make sure everyone is OK, they are all safe and we try and catch this on the head as soon as we can. But obviously we still want to play football and win as many games as we can whether it’s in front of fans or not.”
“It will be sad if there’s no fans there because that’s what football is all about. It would be weird playing behind closed doors but if it gets the league done and dusted and we managed to keep up with the fixtures as well, it helps everybody.”
So far, Scotland’s First Minister has recommended that from Monday – the day after the derby – all events with over 500 people in attendance should be cancelled, by taking this measure it frees up emergency service workers, and in particular, those in the health service for front line duties.
The latest from England, after Manchester City and Arsenal was postponed on Wednesday, is that Leicester City are monitoring the health of several players after they were reported to be showing signs of coronavirus.
This comes on top of the news that Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Juventus have all been heavily affected, Serie A and La Liga have already been temporarily shut-down, given the way that the virus has spread from east-to-west, it is surely only a matter of time before such draconian measures are taken north of Hadrian’s Wall.
Should Celtic be awarded the league title if season is cancelled?
Yes
No
What happens next is anyone’s guess, particularly if the decision is left to the SFA, after all, they have previous for getting things wrong in the not too distant past.