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Bristol Post
Bristol Post
Sport
David Byrom

'Outrageous' - Richard Keys gives opinion on postponement situation for Bristol City and Leeds United

Richard Keys has branded the idea to hand Leeds United and West Bromwich Albion promotion as outrageous.

The idea has been floated to allow the duo to go up due to the coronavirus calling an unprecedented halt to English football.

Yet former Sky Sports presenter Keys, writing on his blog, pointed to the example of Bristol City's seventh place as why it would be unfair to call the season to a halt.

Bristol City head coach Lee Johnson with Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa in the background

He said: "Leeds and West Brom have had eventful seasons, but they’re not up yet. Both can still be caught.

"So how can we promote them? It would be outrageous if those chasing play-off places were to miss out on the chance to get up. 

"Bristol City, Millwall, Cardiff are all jockeying. So are Blackburn and Swansea.

"It’s one of the joys of Championship football that very little is ever settled until the last day of the season.

"Oh - and the football is pure. No VA-bloodyR spoiling matches.

"Barnsley are bottom. They’re not down but they could go - so too could at least seven other teams."

Instead, Keys said the season should be cancelled and started again from scratch should it be impossible to pick up from where clubs left off.

He said: "The sensible thing to sort all these things out is to ‘play on’ when we can. It’s everybody’s preferred choice. But how exactly do we do that?

"Let’s be realistic - the chances of finishing this season are receding by the day. My old mate, Javier Tebas, who runs the Spanish League, has this morning called for the season to be cancelled. Cancel - now. Re-set the clocks.

"Go back to last August and start again with everything as it was. That includes the same teams in the CL, UEL - all of them. That will suit the big boys clamouring for a closed shop of CL clubs anyway.

"How can we realistically start again in - say, a couple of weeks? Six weeks perhaps? No - two months. Perhaps a week? See the problem? It’s one thing all agreeing to stop playing at the same time but teams won’t all be ready to start playing again at the same time.

"What about those isolating players now? Some will show symptoms days/weeks from now. They won’t be ready to play with those who’ve recovered earlier. So teams are nothing like the same as those that stopped playing? Where’s the integrity in that?"

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