Coronavirus has obviously impacted grassroots football tournament plans in 2020. That’s plain to anyone following tournaments during lockdown, but are there hard numbers? I am using my tournaments database to give early statistics for Coronavirus impact on football tournament market. Some tournament plans never got off the ground. Other tournaments (shown on the map) battled to keep the dream of summer football alive. As you’d expect I’ve was in touch with tournament organisers over the period. I kept Club tournament lists updated so that Team Managers knew what was going on. I think this is still important as we head out of August and up to the start of the winter season for grassroots football.
The map shows postponements, rescheduled dates or cancellations I was publishing as of beginning of August 2020. The sample size is 45 tournaments, and there are some interesting stats:-
- 53% of 2020 tournaments were cancelled outright and early on.
- 36% of tournaments were postponed by their organisers. This kept alive the dream of a late summer tournament, after originally planned dates did not go ahead.
- A further 11% of tournament directors were able to go a step further, by postponing and also publishing a rescheduled date. This helped team managers and player’s parents organise their calendars, even if the reschedule turned out to be a little ambitious.
The tournament season was unprecedented. We didn’t know how it would be affected by Coronavirus in 2020. I hope these statistics about the impact of Coronavirus on football tournaments will help Tournament Directors and Team Managers react to uncertainties of 2021.