Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley raises questions about viability of 2020 AFL season
Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley has questioned if restarting the AFL season is worth extreme quarantine measures presented to players including the potential of five months in isolation.
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Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley has cast doubt on whether the AFL should proceed with a season in quarantine hubs due to the significant toll it could have on players’ family and their welfare.
Players may be forced to live away from their families for up to 20 weeks of the dramatically reshaped season to protect the game’s stars from the coronavirus.
But Buckley said the cost of that extraordinary plan may outweigh the benefit of restarting the season.
He said the game’s top officials need to consider whether “a worst-case scenario is actually worth it”.
“It would be incredibly difficult, and I don’t know if it is the right thing to ask people, to be honest,” Buckley said on SEN.
“It’s not something we would have ever thought that we would be confronted with.
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“It’s definitely not something you would choose and it may well get to the stage where the leadership of the game needs to work out whether getting a season away in 2020 or asking our people to expose themselves to what has been presented as a worst-case scenario is actually worth it, or which one is going to cost us more.
“The numbers are easy to work out. You can measure a profit and loss quite easily. The emotional and mental toll and cost is a lot harder to settle on.”
Buckley said he was aware there were a number of scenarios the league was working through, including gaining travel exemptions to be allow teams to fly interstate for games on a weekly basis.
“If we deal in facts right now, I know that the AFL are speaking with governments and state organisations to see what it can do to find an outcome that allows some safe travel and some safe execution of what a home and away season may look like,” he said.
“They are options that are probably less likely to evolve, but they are still being exhausted at this point.
“Once you’ve exhausted all of your other options, I understand the hub is pretty much your only choice in being able to get a season away.
“I think that the time that has been discussed is over the top. If you look at the first part of what was presented which was seven games in five weeks, if you can get seven games away in five weeks and you did that a couple of times, that sounds a whole lot less than 20 weeks.
“The parameters of what the hubs would look like, whether families would be involved or not, players will or should have the choice to opt out, as would staff.
“We’re talking about an incredibly expensive choice and program here as well so there is still a lot to be worked on in what is an increasingly difficult situation for everyone, not just for the industry and AFL football.”
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Buckley said he understood if any player or staff member did not want to be part of a quarantine hub, if it meant being away from their family in a stressful time.
He said it would especially pose a huge challenge for partners and those with children.
“There would be players in our organisation and staff that would not make the decision to come,” Buckley said.
“I would not look dimly on that at all, and that would not surprise me.
“Being away is the easy part of the equation, it’s the people at home that are left to fend for themselves … that is the short end of the stick and I definitely would believe that the leadership and club land would understand that you’re not going to get 100 per cent buy-in with this if it was to occur, and those conversations are yet to be had.”
Originally published as Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley raises questions about viability of 2020 AFL season