Cancel RSPL season – Speid

Technical Director of Cavalier SC Rudolph Speid believes that it would be in the best interest of the Red Stripe Premier League (RSPL) for the 2019-20 season to be cancelled.

Speid told The Gleaner that he does not believe that clubs would able to find the additional funding they would require to finish the season with the new health measures society has to now observe to combat the novel coronavirus.

“For us to say that we must go on with a season is just premature. I am more leaning towards cancel. As I said before, the big problem is going to be how you finance the rest of the season and keep everybody safe,” Speid said. “The cost for gloves, masks, and other things were not accounted for when we were budgeting for the season, and we have to now factor those things.”

Late last week, Carvel Stewart, the vice-chairman of the Premier League Clubs Association (PLCA), said that the league was eyeing a July restart after the season was suspended indefinitely on March 12 after Jamaica confirmed its first case of the virus.

MOST VIABLE OPTION

“We had put forward some options and the latest start of which is in July,” Stewart said. “We think that this is the most viable option now once the Government is OK [with it], and the Government has not made any negative comments about us restarting when they think that the place is sufficiently secure.

“So we are looking at necessary protocols that we would want in place to make sure that we are not spreading the disease, as it were,” Stewart added.

But Speid reckons that it would be a lot harder to restart the season than it was to start in September of last year, with games likely to take place without fans in the event of a resumption, removing critical gate receipt revenue for clubs.

“Revenue will be cut because there will be no gate receipts, and even if you have gate receipts, people not going to come. They are not going to take the risk,” Speid said.

He also believes that many clubs in Jamaica face extinction in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic as their operators may not be able to continue to fund them.

“Local clubs are run out of people’s pockets, and if they are not making enough money, then there will be none to run the clubs. There could be some fallout in the number of clubs in Jamaica after this crisis,” Speid said.