The shutdown of the entire British football programme until early April - and possibly beyond - due to fears over the spread of the Coronavirus, has prompted renewed interest in one of the game's mysterious behind-the-scenes institutions - the Pools Panel.
The Pools Panel is a group of men who sit in a room, poring over the weekend's football fixtures, deciding, according to their expert opinions, what the results of the games will be.
The current team of Tony Green, David Sadler, and Ian Callaghan have a selection of outcomes to choose from:
Home win, Away win, Score draw, and No-score draw.
The decisions they make are used when particularly bad weather results in many games being postponed, and money from gambling is behind it.
Now, however, with the Coronadelay, and a mounting number of fixtures, which is set to increase, the Pools Panel boys have been called in by the Premier League to adjudicate on ALL matches until the end of the season.
Callaghan, a former Liverpool player, said:
"It's not going to be an easy job, but we are completely impartial. There will be no favouritism shown. Well, not much."
On Merseyside, Liverpool fans heaved a sigh of relief.
