Matt Scrafton's opinion: Good ideas from the EFL on resolving the season but questions still need answers

But details emerged last Thursday of the EFL’s plan to manoeuvre the remainder of the 2019/20 campaign through the midst of the current pandemic.

Dare I say it, but the plans seem fairly sensible.

The proposals, as set out by EFL chairman Rick Parry in a letter sent to all member clubs, appear – on the face of it – well thought out.

For once, the EFL appear to be getting ahead of the curve – ignore the pun – and acting proactively, rather than reacting when it’s already too late.

Of course, no-one knows when it will be safe for football to return, so these plans could turn out to be worthless. The best laid plans and all that…

But the EFL can’t really win in these circumstances.

People will inevitably criticise and pick holes in their proposals but these are the same people who would criticise later down the line had they not planned ahead or attempted to at least.

There’s all sorts of ifs, buts and maybes to take into consideration, but you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Compare Parry’s leadership to that of Harvey, who would amble from one crisis to another without an inkling of how to solve it.

There are still a lot of questions to be asked.

How will clubs make enough revenue to survive? Will games be televised or streamed on iFollow? What happens to season ticket holders who have already paid their hard-earned cash?

These are all questions that can be resolved in the coming weeks.

But fans must realise that, given the current circumstances, no plan is going to be foolproof.

If it was as easy as that, I’m sure the footballing authorities would have come up with a solution already.

There’s an opportunity here for streaming services and TV companies. With a dearth of action to televise, you’d imagine they will be queuing around the block to air some live football.

That, financially, could be a goldmine for clubs, especially those lower down the foodchain that will be hanging perilously close to the edge of the cliff. If they’re kept in business, that’s got to be a good thing.

It’s inevitable that next season will be delayed – that’s another thing people need to come to terms with. But right now, that’s of little relevance.

The current season must be completed at any cost to avoid all the fallout that would inevitably follow should the campaign be declared null and void.

To complete the season in 56 days – eight weeks, effectively – sounds tricky but it’s more than doable if you play Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday.

With nine games remaining for Blackpool, they should have no problem completing their schedule.

The only question mark I’d have is over the play-off games.

If games are to be played behind closed doors, is there really a need to play the semi-finals over two legs at home and away? Is it not better to hold a one-off tie at a neutral venue?

Will the final still be held at Wembley? Again, these are questions that can be asked later but they ought to be taken into consideration.

I’m no fan of holding games behind closed doors. Football without its fans is a pretty pointless endeavour.

But these aren’t normal circumstances and, given we’re already three-quarters into the season, there’s no harm in completing it even if supporters aren’t permitted to be in the stadium.

The EFL have also told all clubs not to return to training until May 16 at the earliest, with the season set to resume some time in June and ending at the beginning of August.

This, of course, is all subject to change given there’s every chance we’ll still be in lockdown by that point. But you can see the thinking behind it.

Without doing the maths, there’s probably an opportunity here to re-align the dates of the domestic seasons anyway, given they were due to be ripped up in 2022 for the Qatar World Cup, which was due to be played in winter.

It’s now a case of making the most of a dire situation. If the season can be completed and clubs are able to survive financially, that’s all we can ask for right now.

I’m still of the opinion that football ought to be well down on our list of priorities at present – our health and our livelihoods are all that matter.

But at some point, we’ll have to return to some sort of normality. How that looks and when it happens, we don’t know. But to get to that point you have to get ahead of the game, otherwise you’ll be left behind and forced to deal with the repercussions.