Should The CFL Keep Football On Hold Until There’s A Coronavirus Vaccine?

Some people will claim that football’s not a life or death matter – it’s much bigger than that.

Well, right now the world is living in the midst of a threat to life not known for generations and the death toll is rising every single day.

Football doesn’t seem so important at the moment and the CFL has been rightly postponed.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t answer the question of what its short, medium, and long term future will be. We need a strategy and that starts with addressing whether the CFL can return before a vaccine to coronavirus has been found.

I’ve looked at why it should and why it shouldn’t return – you decide which option sounds more sensible.

What’s happened so far?

Coronavirus has put sport on hold across the globe

If you needed any evidence of this then a quick review of the best betting sites will show you that there’s no football, basketball, baseball, or anything else going on in Canada. That said, there are some sports happening elsewhere. Many of the best betting sites still offer odds on these games.

Despite these outliers, suspension is the correct response from sports organizations because people’s lives are at risk – close to 300,000 people have died at the time of writing this article and that number will have increased by the time you read it.

The CFL is no different from the rest of sport – it indefinitely postponed the pre-season training camps that were due to start on May 17, protecting its players from the risk of COVID-19 infection.

What’s the CFL proposing?

June 11 is when the CFL season was scheduled to start, but it looks impossible for the CFL to return on that date. So, what’s the proposal from the CFL? Will football be back in August, fall, or 2021? It’s difficult to know right now.

What’s clear is that the CFL needs help and its commissioner, Randy Ambrosie, has asked the government to step in – he’s seeking a $150 million bailout to insulate the franchise from the loss of cash from a slimmed down, or lost season.

Why the CFL should keep football on hold

It’s pretty obvious why the CFL should keep football on hold until a vaccine for coronavirus has been found – football is a contact sport and COVID-19 is a deadly virus that’s transmitted when people get close (let alone touch) each other.

Bringing football back before a vaccine is found would risk a second wave of infections, undoing the good preventative work that’s come from society being forced back inside – it would be reckless in the extreme.

But what’s that I hear you say? The CFL can be held without fans and supported by using rigorous testing? This article from Stephanie Apstein explains why that can’t happen. All I’ll say is that it’s possible, but so improbable as to make it essentially impossible.

Why the CFL shouldn’t keep football on hold

It doesn’t take a genius to work out why the CFL shouldn’t keep football on hold – it’s something that unites people, entertains them, and provides them with hope. And couldn’t we all do with a little more of those things right now?

Bringing football back before a vaccine is found would show people that life can return, even though it will be done in stages and with precautions in place. In other words, the CFL can be an example of the roadmap society needs to follow.

But what’s that I hear you say? It’s not possible, it can’t be done? Well, it’s already happening in other countries – May 16 is the return date for Germany’s soccer season, while it never stopped in Belarus (it’s one of the few sports you can still bet on).

Recommended reading: Training acceleration: Distancing yourself from the competition during COVID-19

I’ve given you both sides of the argument in this article – why the CFL shouldn’t return and why it should.

Ultimately, you’ll have to make your own mind up on this topic – even then it won’t matter because the CFL will do what it feels it should do, not what you want it to.

However, I’ve played devil’s advocate long enough, so I’ll close simply by saying this – how long did it take to find a vaccine for SARS? Scientists have yet to find one, and the last case of SARS was reported in 2004.