On Tuesday the Swedish Elitserien was due to start. But the week's discussions have been dominated by Poland’s Ekstraliga's plans to try to have a season despite the Coronavirus challenges.
Ekstraliga to start without fans
On Thursday 30 April the world’s richest speedway league outlined a plan to start its season on 12 June but with no fans at the stadium. With the majority of the matches selling out their 7000-10,000 seater stadiums the challenge of covering their cost looms large.
However, it looks like it might be possible due to riders accepting a 50% cut in wages and the clubs relying on sponsorship and TV revenue.
With the financial details worked out there remains the problem of the riders.
Riders will have to remain in Poland
Poland’s lockdown means limited travel across the borders. Ekstraliga have confirmed that this means riders will have to stay put in Poland, foreigners only able to mix with others once they have completed a mandatory 14 days quarantine.
It all means that import riders have to make a quick decision as to compete in the first round they need to be in Poland by this Friday 8 May.
Danish rider Leon Madsen, the 2018 European Champion, is already based in Poland and is one of several riders who have started a trend to only compete in the nation and the SGPs. So it is no surprise that Madsen signed up to the new deal straight away.
Jason Doyle and Fredrik Lindgren are some of the others international riders who also gone for the deal, but Danish three times world champion Nicki Pedersen refused to re-sign blaming the paycut whilst Emil Sayfutdinov is also thought to be wavering.
No Polish riders likely outside their home country
Doyle's decision means he will not be able to ride for Swindon Robins (UK) or Västervik Speedway (SWE) and will leave his family behind in England for the 3-4 months of the Polish season.
The Extraliga’s decision and the Polish lockdown effectively means no Polish riders will be available outside the country- a serious issue for the Swedish Elitserien where every team has riders from the country. Gislaved Lejonen is practically an all Polish club that would have been led by double U21 World Champion Maksym Drabik. Meanwhile, Vetlanda Speedway will lose world champion, Bartosz Zmarzlik who rode an almost faultless season in 2019 with a 2.791 heat average.
On the other hand, a rider like Pawel Przedpelski will probably be glad to not ride in Sweden and like Madsen, Doyle and Lindgren has signed for Eltrox Wlokniarz Czestochowa. The Pole would has raced for Motala Piraterna and was the only rider signed by Stefan Andersson Skill in his short lived tenure as manager of the club before they admitted to financial difficulties at the 2019 season came to an end.
Will Elitserien be able to run?
The issue with Piraterna points to a major problem that the Swedish clubs are going to face with the COVID-19 affected season - are they actually going to be able to finance it?
Piraterna blamed their crisis on having 500 fans less at every match and partly solved the problem when riders accepted a loss of earnings for the 2019 season. Just this week they have said that they have been able to make the 2020 season by having a 40% reduction in rider costs and even manager and former rider, Daniel Davidsson, has reduced his hours by 75% to cover the lack of income due to no racing at the moment.
Simply put, there is no way they can race the season without fans coming to the match and paying for it.
Swedish TV money not enough
Unlike Poland, the Elitserien cannot run on TV revenue sales alone. The clubs have regularly complained about the poor deals that they received through the owner of the TV rights, Spring Media, in 2018 and 2019. Morgan Andersson, the manager at Västervik Speedway claimed that the club did not receive a single kronor from the TV deal in 2018 when he was interviewed by local Swedish newspaper, Dagens Hultsfred in June 2019.
The new deal for 2020 with CMore, the agency who broadcast top divisions of Sweden's major sports - football and ice hockey- is believed to be much more beneficial for the clubs.
However, this revenue stream was due to work alongside the c. 300,000 SEK (27,000 EUR) the clubs would have received for each match (with c. 2000 spectators present).
Almost all clubs in Sweden have launched a "fictive ticket" campaign where they have asked fans to a buy one or more imaginary tickets in order to support the club during this time. Kumla Indianerna have, for example, sold 700 tickets at 100 SEK each.
SVEMO refuses to allow Swedes to race in Poland
Further drama in the 2020 season, which has not even started yet, is that the Swedish motorsports authority, SVEMO, has responded to Poland's statement by moving to protect their own interests. They have said that all riders with Swedish licence cannot compete in Poland.
It is a move that does not just affect the SGP riders, like Antonio Lindbäck, but also the likes of Kim Nilsson or Linus Sundström and all the others who would have competed in Nice 1 or Nice 2.
Vetlanda and Nyköping Griparna's Peter Ljung (pictured) is one such rider affected by the week's turmoil. The Swede has decided not to sign for Poland and said he had just a few days to make a difficult decision, not knowing if he has swapped a definite season in Poland with a season that will never happen in his home country.
We are living in uncertain times and it is no different in the European speedway world, which is has been built on the premise that riders can freely travel around the continent racing in two to three countries every week. This model is simple not functional under the current circumstances and only time will tell if any speedway is actually going to happen in 2020.
