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Crystal Palace President Steve Parish admits that the challenges facing the Premier League “can be insurmountable.”
Parish is hopeful at the clubs and the league can come to an agreement and find a way to play again.
But he says that public, player and personal safety should come first and that “it may turn out to be beyond possibility.”
“Well, it’s another part of the journey to try to get football back,” he told the Andrew Marr Show.
“And to answer your first question, football doesn’t matter much in the context of public health, and everything we do has to come first.
“But we are a business at the end of the day, and we support jobs, taxes and the economy.”
“And we wouldn’t be doing any duty if we didn’t find a way to try to get the game back.”
“It may turn out beyond us. Obviously, we have big challenges to get it back and complete this season, but we are planning to do it.”
“We have the example of Germany now and if they succeed, that could provide us with a plan and we hope we can do it, but we have to see what the situation is at the time.”
The 20 Premier League clubs will meet again with the main organizers of the flight on Monday to discuss the next phase of the project restart.
But while hoping for a “consensus,” Parish admits that there are still many challenges to overcome.
He added: “We can see some of the first challenges and they can be insurmountable, but the concern for us, of course, is that if they are insurmountable now, then perhaps we are in a very long period of not being able to play and that has enormous ramifications for the game.
“There are no easy answers. We have to work collectively and I think in the end we will reach a consensus.”
The main organizers of the flight have suggested the idea of neutral grounds as part of the Restart Project with 10 stadiums to be used to finish the remaining matches in case the season resumes.
Many clubs are said to be unhappy with the proposal as they feel it violates the integrity of the game.
But Parish believes it’s a much better option than having to open the curtain on the season ahead of time.
“It certainly is not my proposal to play on neutral ground,” he said on the Andrew Marr show.
“Obviously it is for public safety reasons, along with player safety, which is paramount, and staff safety.”
“Will crowds gather outside the stadiums? Police are saying right now that they do not think they can monitor all the grounds.”
“Clearly, it’s suboptimal, everything.”
Addressing claims of violation of game integrity, the Palace boss added: “The moment the season stops, competitive integrity is broken.
“And we’ll go back to something that is our worst game option, but all of those things, if we can get the game back, for me, are so much better than arguing points per game or whatever. Things we would have to do if we finished the season.
“Obviously, if we can play in our own stadiums, that would be preferable for everyone, but right now it is the same situation with the government and the authorities as with us.”
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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