Today we should have been playing Charlton in an exciting London derby everyone was looking forward to.
Eight days earlier we should have welcomed Portsmouth to The Cherry Red Records Stadium for another cracking League One encounter.
Instead both games were cancelled by the EFL because both visiting clubs were struck by Covid and couldn’t field enough first-team players.
The pandemic certainly takes no prisoners but ever since it struck we have taken exhaustive measures to protect our players and ensure we were always able to field a starting X1.
We have managed to do that on a fraction of the resources enjoyed by many of the teams in our division - and yet now we are left with cancelled games and fixture chaos. Which puts greater strain on our already depleted squad.
As a result of this we have sent a strongly-worded letter to the EFL spelling out how we feel - and calling on them, as our governing body, to take a much stronger stance going forward.
Dear all,
Re. Response to Postponed Fixtures
We are writing to openly express our disappointment over the recent spate of matches that member clubs have been unable to fulfil.
We also want to take this opportunity to call on the EFL to undertake its due processes and implement the strongest-possible measures to ensure that - where a club is able to fulfil a fixture - it does so.
Further, where it is found that a club was unable to fulfil a fixture, they must be held to account for all decisions which led to that position.
We would also like to advocate for the reintroduction of 5 substitutions per match. With a congested fixture calendar now a guarantee for all clubs, we would wish to have every tool available to us in order to manage our squad best.
At the point of writing, six of the 10 fixtures on EFL League One’s Boxing Day schedule cannot be fulfilled. On the weekend of the 18th December, six of the 12 scheduled matches did not go ahead, again because the matches could not be fulfilled.
AFC Wimbledon has one of the smallest playing budgets in the league and alongside this, one of the smallest first-team playing squads. The club is a London club, where Coronavirus has been most rife. A State of Emergency has been declared by the Mayor of London. Yet since the new Omicrom variant became prevalent, only 11 cases of Coronavirus have been recorded in our playing squad and first-team management (of which only three have been in our player and staff first-team bubble).
This is not by luck. This is down to hard work and spending resources our club ultimately does not have at its disposal.
This is the players sacrificing their ability to spend time with their loved ones. Christmas gatherings have been cancelled and everyone at the club has played their part; the players have to be truly commended for their commitment.
At significant cost, we have tested players twice weekly since the beginning of the season. In the weeks before the Red Zone protocols were brought into effect, we upped this to three tests per week.
We then moved to Red Zone protocols with daily testing in the week before the EFL’s announcement of such measures.
The club has isolated individuals and chosen not to select players for match-day squads. We have taken some very difficult decisions to manage our squad, which most likely led to a loss of on-field competitiveness.
Training has been impacted by the immediate removal or our U23 and loan players from our training group (due to the likelihood of exposure to Covid-19 at their non-league loan clubs).
If we can make all this work - on such limited resources - then so should the rest.
AFC Wimbledon understands that we are not alone in undertaking these measures and acknowledges some clubs may well have gone further.
However, we can’t help feeling the preventative measures taken by the club ultimately cost us a competitive edge on the pitch earlier in the season. Yet now, when our measures are truly coming into their own, we have been hit financially with the postponement of our two-largest revenued fixtures of the season.
Whilst acknowledging that two further dates have been created in the fixture list (with the removal of Emirates FA Cup Replay dates in Rounds 3 and 4), no team would enter this competition with the hope of getting a replay.
You play to win first time around, thus giving entrance into the next round and alleviating potential fixture congestion. We will now be forced into playing these matches, at a rapid turnaround, which will have a serious effect on the players’ physical and mental welfare.
It just doesn’t sit right that, having gone above and beyond our means to ensure matches can be fulfilled, we will now be at a disadvantage - trying to navigate a very congested second half of the season with a small squad.
Meanwhile, clubs with larger squads will have the upper hand, having been provided the opportunity to take a more relaxed approach knowing there will be no penalties for conduct that sits outside of the protocols.
Sorry but that is bullshit... We didnt ask for a single game to be called off last season, and that was before any of the vaccinations became available
COVID has been a complete lottery as to who has caught it, my wife works with the public for three days a week, and has done apart for two months during lockdown across April / May 2020 - Me on the other hand, I barely leave the house now, barely mingle with the public yet caught COVID before she did!!
Wimbledon can piss off with their complaints, and their "we're a small club in a big pond" whinging - They acted like billy big bollocks as they came through the Non-League system so can drop that attitude now.
If they dont like it Im sure they'll be able to hold up a banner wishing ill on others, and get their Groundstaff to dish out some abuse too
Good job they weren't scheduled to play Lincoln or Peterborough last season, seeing how they both mugged off the EFL over "timings" of positive cases.
Maybe because of that the EFL have now, I believe, got it right regarding the protocols needed to be able to call a match off.
Wimbledon playing the "poor me" card. Never looks good.
And to think they wanted to do random "spot checks" as whether fans attending today have got a "covid passport".......even though they said that as this wasnt law for attendances below 10k then they would be admitting everyone on anyway. Would have saved money not employing people to do that pointless exercise.
I understand the sentiment behind their message although I think some of it is clumsily worded. As others have pointed out to suggest luck has played no part in them not having an outbreak is going to make them look mighty foolish in the event they have an outbreak.
However there are definitely clubs and managers who are using Covid as an excuse to push their agendas on the fixture schedule. How often have we heard managers like Klopp moan about the Xmas schedule and players welfare because they are playing to many games and it is beginning to feel like Covid is being used as a smoke-screen for the same characters to push their agendas.
How these clubs and managers can go on about player welfare and keep a straight face when they are going on pre-season tours to America, Qatar etc is beyond me. Ralf Rangnick has been involved in English football for less than a month and was already advocating scrapping the League cup this week. Interesting to see if he feels the same about wherever Utd are going for their pre season tour next year.
If professional footballers can't play games back-to-back and cope with the fixture schedule then there is something wrong. We are in an era where almost all top level managers rotate their squads anyway so how many players actually end up playing every single game. Top flight squads now are so big that they should be able to rotate and if they can't then they are quite simply not managing their resources properly.
Not just picking out Palace in particular but they tried to get today's game cancelled yet fielded a full strength side, similarly Chelsea did the same against Wolves yet had almost a full strength side out as well. Both the Premier League and EFL have published their guidelines for the minimum amount of players needed to fulfill a fixture, and you would assume clubs must have had some input into the rules. Unless clubs can't fulfill this minimum quota they shouldn't even be allowed to request a fixture be cancelled.
At first I felt quite understanding about the message being put across, but now have changed my mind on it completely.
Have you ever heard of something so ridiculous as penalising companies for their employees catching COVID? In his last paragraph he is seemingly suggesting that penalties should be in place.
An outbreak can be caused by something as simple as a player’s kid coming into contact with someone at school, bringing it home, passing it onto the player and then that passes onto the squad. Nothing to do with club’s not meeting protocols or not trying hard enough.
I expect Wimbledon will inevitably go through a similar situation themselves at some point, with the way this variant spreads. What will his tune be then?
I was as gutted as anyone that the game was called off, but pointing the finger and suggestion that a club or players should be blamed or penalised is ridiculous.
Wimbledons stance is a twatish, selfish one. Surely the clubs should all be trying to help each other out through this crisis and not try to take the higher ground.
Personally hope they now get a dose through the club, see what they whine about then.
Cynic in me wonders if we'd have still seen this statement if say Morecombe and Accrington had postponed their visits to Plough Lane, rather than us and Portsmouth.
They have history of using the pandemic to their advantage - voting to end the League One season early to avoid the threat of relegation had the 19-20 season been played out. Ask Tranmere fans about it.
Larger clubs are penalized by the smaller clubs insistence on having maximum squad sizes. If there wasn't one then maybe we would have another 5 players and have been able to fulfil the fixture...
They have history of using the pandemic to their advantage - voting to end the League One season early to avoid the threat of relegation had the 19-20 season been played out. Ask Tranmere fans about it.
Was also thinking this as i read the article. They were 20th in league one at the time the 19/20 season ended so were in real danger of going down had the season continued. Now they're crying about a couple of postponements.
Admittedly they have been affected more than most, and already have 3-4 games in hand on most of the division which is also down to the fact they're still in the FA Cup, but there are plenty of spare midweeks in March/April to play games. From the 26 Feb through to Easter (15 April) there are no scheduled midweek games.
Shame we’ve got such a small allocation for this, no idea why
Small ground
I mean why have we been given only 1,000 when it’s usually 1,400 tickets available for other clubs
From Wimbledon's website:
The Cherry Red Records end can theoretically hold 1,466 supporters but that’s something that’s almost entirely beyond our control.
Clearly some of the bigger clubs are going to bring more fans with them than others. Bolton, for example, just about filled the stand with their fans - but that’s not always going to be the case. In fact, they’re the exception rather than the norm. We also have restrictions placed on us depending on the category level of the match so, in reality, we are unlikely to have more than 1200 maximum in there. In fact we are currently restricted to 1000 until we have completed some alterations proposed by the Safety Advisory Group.
Comments
I wonder if AFC have seen the photos from our players at Winter Wonderland...
Eight days earlier we should have welcomed Portsmouth to The Cherry Red Records Stadium for another cracking League One encounter.
Instead both games were cancelled by the EFL because both visiting clubs were struck by Covid and couldn’t field enough first-team players.
The pandemic certainly takes no prisoners but ever since it struck we have taken exhaustive measures to protect our players and ensure we were always able to field a starting X1.
We have managed to do that on a fraction of the resources enjoyed by many of the teams in our division - and yet now we are left with cancelled games and fixture chaos. Which puts greater strain on our already depleted squad.
As a result of this we have sent a strongly-worded letter to the EFL spelling out how we feel - and calling on them, as our governing body, to take a much stronger stance going forward.
Dear all,
Re. Response to Postponed Fixtures
We are writing to openly express our disappointment over the recent spate of matches that member clubs have been unable to fulfil.
We also want to take this opportunity to call on the EFL to undertake its due processes and implement the strongest-possible measures to ensure that - where a club is able to fulfil a fixture - it does so.
Further, where it is found that a club was unable to fulfil a fixture, they must be held to account for all decisions which led to that position.
We would also like to advocate for the reintroduction of 5 substitutions per match. With a congested fixture calendar now a guarantee for all clubs, we would wish to have every tool available to us in order to manage our squad best.
At the point of writing, six of the 10 fixtures on EFL League One’s Boxing Day schedule cannot be fulfilled. On the weekend of the 18th December, six of the 12 scheduled matches did not go ahead, again because the matches could not be fulfilled.
AFC Wimbledon has one of the smallest playing budgets in the league and alongside this, one of the smallest first-team playing squads. The club is a London club, where Coronavirus has been most rife. A State of Emergency has been declared by the Mayor of London. Yet since the new Omicrom variant became prevalent, only 11 cases of Coronavirus have been recorded in our playing squad and first-team management (of which only three have been in our player and staff first-team bubble).
This is not by luck. This is down to hard work and spending resources our club ultimately does not have at its disposal.
This is the players sacrificing their ability to spend time with their loved ones. Christmas gatherings have been cancelled and everyone at the club has played their part; the players have to be truly commended for their commitment.
At significant cost, we have tested players twice weekly since the beginning of the season. In the weeks before the Red Zone protocols were brought into effect, we upped this to three tests per week.
We then moved to Red Zone protocols with daily testing in the week before the EFL’s announcement of such measures.
The club has isolated individuals and chosen not to select players for match-day squads. We have taken some very difficult decisions to manage our squad, which most likely led to a loss of on-field competitiveness.
Training has been impacted by the immediate removal or our U23 and loan players from our training group (due to the likelihood of exposure to Covid-19 at their non-league loan clubs).
If we can make all this work - on such limited resources - then so should the rest.
AFC Wimbledon understands that we are not alone in undertaking these measures and acknowledges some clubs may well have gone further.
However, we can’t help feeling the preventative measures taken by the club ultimately cost us a competitive edge on the pitch earlier in the season. Yet now, when our measures are truly coming into their own, we have been hit financially with the postponement of our two-largest revenued fixtures of the season.
Whilst acknowledging that two further dates have been created in the fixture list (with the removal of Emirates FA Cup Replay dates in Rounds 3 and 4), no team would enter this competition with the hope of getting a replay.
You play to win first time around, thus giving entrance into the next round and alleviating potential fixture congestion. We will now be forced into playing these matches, at a rapid turnaround, which will have a serious effect on the players’ physical and mental welfare.
It just doesn’t sit right that, having gone above and beyond our means to ensure matches can be fulfilled, we will now be at a disadvantage - trying to navigate a very congested second half of the season with a small squad.
Meanwhile, clubs with larger squads will have the upper hand, having been provided the opportunity to take a more relaxed approach knowing there will be no penalties for conduct that sits outside of the protocols.
Kind regards,
Joe Palmer
Chief Executive Officer
Not to mention they were calling games off themselves last winter.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54857590
Sorry but that is bullshit... We didnt ask for a single game to be called off last season, and that was before any of the vaccinations became available
COVID has been a complete lottery as to who has caught it, my wife works with the public for three days a week, and has done apart for two months during lockdown across April / May 2020 - Me on the other hand, I barely leave the house now, barely mingle with the public yet caught COVID before she did!!
Wimbledon can piss off with their complaints, and their "we're a small club in a big pond" whinging - They acted like billy big bollocks as they came through the Non-League system so can drop that attitude now.
If they dont like it Im sure they'll be able to hold up a banner wishing ill on others, and get their Groundstaff to dish out some abuse too
Twats
Good job they weren't scheduled to play Lincoln or Peterborough last season, seeing how they both mugged off the EFL over "timings" of positive cases.
Maybe because of that the EFL have now, I believe, got it right regarding the protocols needed to be able to call a match off.
Wimbledon playing the "poor me" card. Never looks good.
And to think they wanted to do random "spot checks" as whether fans attending today have got a "covid passport".......even though they said that as this wasnt law for attendances below 10k then they would be admitting everyone on anyway. Would have saved money not employing people to do that pointless exercise.
However there are definitely clubs and managers who are using Covid as an excuse to push their agendas on the fixture schedule. How often have we heard managers like Klopp moan about the Xmas schedule and players welfare because they are playing to many games and it is beginning to feel like Covid is being used as a smoke-screen for the same characters to push their agendas.
How these clubs and managers can go on about player welfare and keep a straight face when they are going on pre-season tours to America, Qatar etc is beyond me. Ralf Rangnick has been involved in English football for less than a month and was already advocating scrapping the League cup this week. Interesting to see if he feels the same about wherever Utd are going for their pre season tour next year.
If professional footballers can't play games back-to-back and cope with the fixture schedule then there is something wrong. We are in an era where almost all top level managers rotate their squads anyway so how many players actually end up playing every single game. Top flight squads now are so big that they should be able to rotate and if they can't then they are quite simply not managing their resources properly.
Not just picking out Palace in particular but they tried to get today's game cancelled yet fielded a full strength side, similarly Chelsea did the same against Wolves yet had almost a full strength side out as well. Both the Premier League and EFL have published their guidelines for the minimum amount of players needed to fulfill a fixture, and you would assume clubs must have had some input into the rules. Unless clubs can't fulfill this minimum quota they shouldn't even be allowed to request a fixture be cancelled.
Have you ever heard of something so ridiculous as penalising companies for their employees catching COVID? In his last paragraph he is seemingly suggesting that penalties should be in place.
An outbreak can be caused by something as simple as a player’s kid coming into contact with someone at school, bringing it home, passing it onto the player and then that passes onto the squad. Nothing to do with club’s not meeting protocols or not trying hard enough.
I expect Wimbledon will inevitably go through a similar situation themselves at some point, with the way this variant spreads. What will his tune be then?
Personally hope they now get a dose through the club, see what they whine about then.
Always has been a shit club.
Admittedly they have been affected more than most, and already have 3-4 games in hand on most of the division which is also down to the fact they're still in the FA Cup, but there are plenty of spare midweeks in March/April to play games. From the 26 Feb through to Easter (15 April) there are no scheduled midweek games.
Wimbledon
I would think sometime after January to hope that this flurry of postponements dies down.