it's complated (boring post alert)

For instance promotion/relegation is a matter for the FA Council to decide on - that's reps from the EPL, EFL, National League, and loads of other random sundry stakeholders (per FA Rules of the Association). But the FA's Articles of Association suggest the Council cant change anything that has a commercial/economic impact without the FA Board empowering them to do so.

So unless the FA Board is minded to scrap promotion/relegation across the National League System, *someone* has to be promoted and *someone* has to be relegated.

How you determine that is down to each competition. The EPL's rules are completely silent on what happens if a season isn't completed. There's no force majeure mechanism or similar. So in the absence of a positive decision to take a different path, the default seems to be that we just wait until all games can be played again. But as that is a bit of a nonsense in the real world outside of USAC-land, given the interrelationships across football domestically and within Europe, there isn't really a 'do nothing' option here.

The EPL Handbook starts with an interesting line in its Chairmen's Charter: "[Clubs] Will seek to resolve differences between each other without recourse to law."

I think this (as well as practical common sense) is going to be the foundation stone of any discussions between the Clubs on what is going to happen - namely that a decision *has* to be made (there is no workable default) and that whichever way it goes, the Clubs won't be suing each other over it.

Stepping away from whatever the rules or laws say for one moment - it would be a huge huge step for any Club to sue the EPL over a decision taken as a group - just because they don't like the outcome. It's possible, of course, but it would be a nuclear option.

Rule C.14 is the one that states that the three clubs at the bottom of the table at the end of the Season are relegated.

Note this rule can't be changed without the FA's consent (they have a Special Share, so even if all 20 EPL clubs wanted to end relegation, the FA can keep it)

Note also that the 'Season' is just defined as from the first scheduled fixtures to the last fixture. Each Club gets to play two League Matches. One has to be the Home Club, one has to be Away Club. Note the Home Club is the club whose Stadium the math is "or should have been" played at - a quick scan doesn't suggest that a neutral venue can't be used.

So on the face of it, if the Clubs agree that the Season is at an end (which they might be forced to do, just to align with what the rest of what the football world is doing), it's the bottom three that go down unless an alternative means of settling the table can be agreed.

All decisions to change the rules need 14 clubs to agree (note there is an express mechanism that lets 16 clubs evict anyone).

How this gets resolved is going to come back to the why the Remainers lost in Parliament - it's no good just being against something, you've got to be 'for' something. In the absence of the FA deciding to cancel relegation across the league system, 3 go down. In the absence of adopting PPG or similar, the bottom 3 when the season ends go down. In the absence of agreeing the season has ended, it just goes on and on indefinitely and leaves the EPL massively out of sync with the rest of football, player contracts, transfer windows, commercial deals, etc etc, and buggers up English football in the meantime whilst they wait for the Golden Goose to finish fannying around, sends multiple clubs out of business at all levels of the game, and generally won't be a viable option (although like no deal, you can't rule it out...)

The FA at some point will bang heads together and either scrap relegations across the pyramid or just tell everyone to grow a pair and accept it for the greater good (which do you think it will be, kids?).

This will not be resolved in the Courts (or by arbitration, which the EPL requires anyway). It is totes a commercial decision for the Grown Ups, as I am fond of telling clients when I don't want my neck on the line.

All usual caveats apply: I'm not a top QC, I haven't read all of the 1000 odd pages of the EPL/FA rules, I've not bothered with the EFL stuff, the Companies Act geeks might find something that overrides the EPL Articles of Association, etc etc

Posted By: CWC on April 28th 2020 at 22:34:09

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