Last night the committee had a meeting to discuss things going further, and to answer some questions that were asked.
Promotions / Relegations: Bottom 2 teams of Division 1 will be automatically relegated. Top 2 od Division 2 will be automatically promoted. 3rd from the bottom Division 1 will face 3rd from the top Division 2 for the last promotion spot. So for example, if the standings stay the same, Panorama and Lenasia would get relegated, Highlands Park B and Old Parks woukld get promoted, and Crusader would face Drunken Pandas for the last spot.
The last round for Division 1 will be the 7th of September, and for Division 2 will be the 14th of September (calendars are out of sync because Division 1 has 8 teams after Leeds left earlier in the season).
We passed the half point of the season. From now on, all the games that have not been played in the first round will be 6 pointers. UNLESS an agreement has been made between the two teams to play on a different date (monday / friday / whatever) (which supersede the league rules, we want teams to play rather and we are all adults so if there is a will there is a way). Again, we would rather have teams play against each other if there is still a chance rather than start giving 3-0 forfeits left and right.
During the current season, we reached a gentlemen agreement so if an away team cancels the scheduled game, the return game will be a 6 pointers still played at the original ground. For example Panorama was supposed to play Lenasia at Robertsham but because of a funeral they couldn’t make it. So it was agreed that the return leg would still be played at Lenasia’s home ground for 6 points. The same happened with Highlands A, they were supposed to play Panorama at the Panorama’s ground, but they cancelled it, so the return leg will still be played there. This is to cover the costs for late cancellations (referees, grounds, transport) so they can be re-used in the next leg, and to avoid tactical cancellations for the away team trying to sneak a 6 pointers at home. I think it is a fair agreement.
After that the cups will be played. There will be two cups: the Champions Cup and the Challengers Cup (temporary names, sorry, you can call them how you want at the moment).
Champions Cup: top 4 teams from Division 1, top 4 teams from Division 2.
Challengers Cup: bottom 4 teams from Division 1, bottom 5 teams from Division 2
Formula: quarter finals, semifinals and final. No extra time, straight to penalties.
Draw: We will have a live draw next tuesday. A link will be sent to watch it if you want to. It won’t take long.
Pool A (top current 4 teams Division 1) will face teams from Pool B (top current 4 teams Division 2). Home ground will be also randomly decided.
Pool C (top bottom 4 teams Division 1) will face teams fomr Pool D (bottom 5 teams division 2). Home ground will be also randomly decided.
Since Pool D has 5 teams, an additional draw will be made to decided which 2 teams will have to play an extra game to enter the main draw.
Dates: 19th of September (it’s a monday) for the extra playoff game. We want to start Summer League in early October so we cannot dedicate a full week for one game, sorry. We will need a result, so if one of the team cannot make, it will be a walkover. If both teams cannot make it, the result in the double leg in the winter league will be taken into consideration.
Quarter finals: 21st of September
Semi finals: 28th of September
Finals: 5th of of October
We are trying to organize all the finals on one venue. It will be easier for the cup giving ceremony. The idea is to have Champions final, Challengers final and the promotion play off. Obviously if one of the teams involved in the promotion play off is also playing in a final, this will be postponed (as long as it gets played before the summer league starts, so the calendars can be made in time, take few days to work out the kinks).
Payments: 11 out of 17 teams confirmed payments. The other 6 teams will be contacted individually. We need all of them to pay up or at least to make an effort / have a plan in order to allow them to keep playing in the league. Also the money will be used towards the prize giving awards at the end of the year (medals etc..).
Summer League: currently the idea is to start the 12th of October, as early as possible, since we have a long break in December. There is a chance some team from the previous seasons will re-join the league. If this happens, they will go straight to Division 1 in order to keep both leagues at 9 teams and simplify the calendars. Obviously the calendars can only be created once we know the promoted / relegated teams.
This is all, thank you.