Matt Maher: A 22-team Premier League may be the way to keep lawyers out

After weeks of talks which have created no shortage of publicity but little in the way of real progress, the time has arrived for the Premier League to begin taking some firm strides toward making Project Restart a reality.

By some point today they will hope to have broad agreement from managers and players on medical protocols which includes twice weekly testing, daily temperature checks and – initially – a ban on tackling should training resume while social distancing remains in place.

Secure that – and it is by no means guaranteed – and the focus will then shift to the next Premier League conference call, scheduled for Monday, at which point the 20 clubs might just be in a position to take a formal vote on the restart blueprint.

A blueprint is all it will and can ever be at a time when the biggest influence on the narrative is not the interests of individual clubs but infection rates and daily death tolls.

The encouraging signals sent to the Premier League by the government will very quickly change should the latter rise or the former fail to fall at any point in the next fortnight.

Just like every other business, football must place a large asterisk next to its plans. Those who have followed the discussion over the sport’s return with emotions ranging from hope, to indifference and in some cases downright disgust should be warned we are nowhere near the end of the debate. The next few days will merely represent the end of the beginning.

What remains clear is the Premier League will do everything it possibly can to get the show back on the road.

Though every club is ultimately driven by self-interest, finishing the campaign on the pitch has always been the preferred outcome.

Not only would it reduce the rebate demanded by broadcasters, it would also prevent the ‘summer of chaos’ which would undoubtedly ensue should the season not finish and relegation be decided by a mathematical formula.

It is not just about the Premier League. In League One, Peterborough owner Darragh MacAnthony has already warned the EFL to prepare for a ‘legal battle of epic proportions’ if promotion is awarded and his club, sixth in the table, do not go up.

If that is the language being used in the third tier, heaven knows what terminology will be required to describe the wranglings should promotion and relegation between the Premier League and the Championship – and the direction of several hundred million pounds – be determined by statisticians.

That possibility moved a little closer this week when the FA, who remain a stakeholder in the Premier League, made clear it would block any attempt by the top flight to prevent promotion or relegation should the season not be completed.

Yet while clearly a significant development, the FA’s intervention would not prevent a club relegated after an incomplete season from taking legal recourse.

“It really would be a minefield,” explains Tim Bailey, sports lawyer for the Staffordshire-based Beswicks agency. “Whichever solution they came up with for deciding the final places there will be three clubs who will argue they have been materially prejudiced. There are avenues they can take to have the decision reviewed to the point where it could be reversed or they are compensated accordingly.”

Were the season to finish without another ball being kicked, Villa would almost certainly be among those clubs. Of all the mathematical models so far suggested, none would see Dean Smith’s team climb out of the bottom three, even allowing for their game in hand.

The biggest controversy would be over who finished 18th. Should the Premier League adopt a straight points-per-game approach, it would be Bournemouth who dropped with Villa and Norwich. Yet an alternative solution, such as that used in rugby where points per game is weighted between home and away fixtures, would see West Ham fall two places from 16th and into the drop zone. Talk about a minefield.

Clubs like Villa would clearly use every legal avenue possible to fight against relegation in a season where their fate had been determined by a sporting version of musical chairs. Demoting a team just two points from safety with a game in hand would seem incredibly unfair.

Yet neither would it be fair to deny Albion and Leeds, six and seven points clear at the top of the Championship respectively, the promotion which seemed likely to be theirs had the season not been interrupted. Should it fail to restart, finding a solution which is both fair and practical is simply not possibly. There is no way of pleasing everyone.

The best compromise might still lie in an enlarged 22-team Premier League, with the Championship’s top two promoted and no relegation.

Much as football can be motivated by self-interest, journalism is often no different. Of course a Midlands football writer would lobby for the solution which suits both clubs on the patch.

But there are those involved in discussions over the Premier League’s resumption who also see it as a possible solution, depending on how things pan out.

Perhaps several weeks from now, should the restart fail to get off the ground, the 22-team Premier League might begin to emerge as the path of least legal resistance. We are still at a point where nothing is entirely off the table.

Should the next few days of talks go well the Premier League should at least find itself on a pathway to completing the season which, if successful, renders much of the above discussion and headaches null and void. For now, however, that remains a big ‘if’.