Chief executive Gary Sweet says Luton Town ‘don’t want to be lucky’ and hope for a cancellation of this term’s Championship due to Coronavirus – instead he’d rather finish the campaign behind closed doors and try to beat relegation on merit.
All elite football matches in England were yesterday suspended until April 3, despite UK Government advice the day before that the scientific advice was that ‘banning such events will have little effect on the spread’ of the Covid-19 disease.
However, after the EFL and the Premier League made their own decision to pause fixtures for three weeks – starting from today, when Luton had been due to host Preston North End – news broke last night that the UK Government was set to U-turn on their original advice.
With the number of coronavirus cases in the UK nearing 800 and the death toll hitting 11, ministers are now preparing to introduce emergency legislation early next week that would ban all mass gatherings and sports events from next weekend.
But asked about the interruption to the season, with Town trying to plot a way out of the bottom three – where they are second from bottom and six points from safety – Sweet said: “This is bigger than football and bigger than what league we’re in.
“I know if the season is cancelled and started again, for example, there will be a load of supporters punching the air.
“It won’t be much of a saving grace for us, I’ve got to say. We want to stay in this league, we want to do it on merit. We think we can and should be able to do it on merit. We don’t want a bye. We don’t want to be lucky.
“We don’t want to be the team that’s playing everybody next year (and them) saying, ‘they should’ve been relegated’. That isn’t where we want to end this season.”
Sweet voiced his preference to play games behind closed doors, once fixtures resume, and explained why he thought that was the most palatable option.
“My preference and even the most responsible thing to do, even though, financially, it’s probably not the best, would be to play games behind closed doors and keep the season on track as far as possible,” he said.
“I think this should’ve been done yesterday. In which case we all get to play the games when they should’ve been played. The season finishes and there’s a strong argument to say that, the quicker the season finishes, the better.
“We don’t have a void season, which I think is huge advantage. We don’t really want that on the copybook of football.
“The players are largely unaffected and the only problem, but it’s a big problem, is how you deal with the issue of football clubs being starved of cash, temporarily.”
The Hatters supremo has also called on the Premier League to dip into their cash reserves of £1.5billion to help clubs lower down the pyramid who will be hit hard by the match suspension and a lack of income.
