Saturday 5 February 2011

Why I didn't bother giving a full fixture list

For those not yet aware, the fixture list for 2011 has been dramatically changed. As thai-fussball.de reports:

If you looked at the frame schedule of the 2011 season a few weeks ago, you easily could see that the season will end in October. After the league meeting between all the clubs at the beginning of this week, things changed dramatically. According to the recent released schedule, as of 2nd February, we will not see the new champions be crowned before end of January 2012.
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This season we will have the break after match day 15. During October an November there are even 3 rounds only. Reason for that are the SEA-Games in Indonesia. Taking place from 11 to 25 November
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Last but not least, the 41st Kings Cup, is scheduled for December. From 3rd to 10th December the annual tournament is planned to be held. ...
There are no official FIFA dates during that time frame. So it is most unlikely that all the star players of the respective national sides would be released by their clubs. .....

It may be a good thing not to have many games in October if this year's monsoon is anything like the last, and we can hardly blame Worawi for trying to fix a lighter schedule considering the flak he continues to receive for last year's debacle. But then, you have to wonder just how competently this is all being done. Such a sweeping change to the fixtures less than a month after they were announced is hardly suggestive of forward planning.

As Lokomotive points out, we have some real questions here. What are the odds that the King's Cup is suddenly ordered to go ahead in December as the TPL title race is entering the final furlong? If the season finishes in January, when will the next one start? It's no good pacing this season nicely if the players get two weeks for their end of season break. With the start of Division 2 being delayed by two weeks, will we finally see seasons overlap as we so nearly did this year?

In summary then, this seems like a good move that has been hastily decided and may well backfire if more forward planning isn't employed.

2 comments:

  1. So that's 12 days short of a year-long season (assuming it finishes on time) and that doesn't even include expansion play-offs. Therefore the 2012 season will start in March at the very earliest (and that's only if there's almost no close-season). Projecting forward, every new season will start at least a month later than the one which preceded it. Why do I get the feeling they haven't really thought this through a all?

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  2. Yep. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck......:-)

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