Coronavirus: Football the land that perspective forgot

The desire of the English Premier League elite is for a resumption on June 1, which is madness, given the seriousness of the situation.

Dusk falls over Liverpool’s home ground Anfield as the EPL endures a shutdown. Picture: Getty Images

Football is inherently the land that perspective forgot. It’s about passion, tribalism and self-absorption. So Monday’s chilling warning from the Ipswich Town and Wales midfield player Emyr Huws, whose father works in Britain’s National Health Service, should really wake people up to the silent enemy invading this country.

“Doctors like my dad are treating patients without proper protective kit, this is wrong and upsetting!” the former Manchester City player tweeted. “The least everyone can do is isolate diligently to try and slow this down. This isn’t a game. You are risking leaving our health care on the frontline helpless #protecttheNHS”.

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Huws’s message about the threat of coronavirus was to the individual but also needs understanding by the footballing collective. The 26-year-old represents a League One club, awaiting a recall to arms, but all the sport is itching to return and the EFL so often follows the English Premier League. The desire of the elite is for a resumption on June 1, which is madness, given the seriousness of the situation that Huws Sr faces.

The thought of removing even one ambulance, one paramedic, from the hard-pressed NHS by rushing football back for the cameras, staging matches behind closed doors, would be a shame the game would take a long, long time to live down. Fully empowering the NHS, frontline heroes such as Huws’s father in this war against a pandemic, is the only priority, the only thought.

It is irresponsible, actually impossible, to accept the inference over the weekend that the Premier League would seriously try to resume on June 1, rattling through the remaining fixtures, grabbing a quick break, a shortened pre-season and then hitting the scheduled date for the new season on August 8. Yes, complete the season but at the right time.

This June 1 idea looks simply to fulfil broadcast contractual obligations, and avoid a pounds 762 million hit. This ignores the modelling of the coronavirus surge that suggests, in the words of one deeply engaged in organising the magnificent NHS resistance, that “anything planned before the middle of October is just wishful thinking”.

The debate around “behind closed doors” revolves around much more than dates of football’s resumption and the justifiable moral outrage after the arrogant appropriation of emergency services resources to allow games to go ahead. The debate also gets to the heart of football, about elite football’s self-interest and also its perspective on fans.

A strong light is cast on the game, highlighting the goodness within the sport, the community spirit of many within dressing rooms and clubs, on the terraces too, but also revealing the flaws. Calls for football to “reset” when the action resumes, to rediscover its soul and address iniquities, are entirely understandable. This time out has to be a period for reflection as well as frustration.

Any “manifesto” for a reset sport has to include: tempering agents’ fees; making wages more performance-related; banishing bigotry; funding Kick It Out properly; adhering to FFP; and recompensing smaller clubs commensurably for finding and fostering talent. Any “manifesto” must involve oft-stated entreaties: the haves showing greater solidarity with the have-not clubs; supporting the troubled non-League and stricken grassroots; allowing in only owners who engage emotionally; and the usual onfield plea of encouraging respect and punishing simulation. Oh, and recalibrating VAR and the Laws to ensure a game of fluidity and justice.

Any “manifesto” must also embrace a proper recognition of the contribution of supporters. Hackles, let alone eyebrows, rise at the mention of a “behind closed doors” return for the game as it is an affront to the organisation served so selflessly by Huws’s father, which needs every paramedic and every ambulance.

It would be a PR disaster if the English Premier League brand played on too soon, dancing to TV’s tune, and a confusing look if the elite took to the field when the nation’s children gaze from afar, asking the legitimate question as to why they, too, are not allowed to kick a ball about with their friends. It would be so wretchedly cynical, even by football’s standards, if the perception took hold that football was sprinting back partly to appease the bookmaking industry, confirming an uncomfortably close relationship.

It would deny fans who have waited impatiently through this horrendous hiatus that cathartic release, that scream of joy at witnessing the game’s return, re-engaging with a loved one. Football must wait until the pressure on the NHS is eased, when the game can complete the season with a clear conscience, before pulling its boots back on.

Playing football precipitately before empty grounds yet packed sofas would be a callous statement that viewers matter more than the loyal ones who turn up through thick and thin.

Fans merit better treatment from the EPL and, also, down the pyramid, especially in the Championship, where some ticket prices are simply out of keeping with the entertainment level, let alone the economy.

So any “manifesto” needs more sensible pricing, especially for away fans — twenty’s plenty — and for the 16-24 age groups. Any “manifesto” must reimburse supporters for fixture changes, or make the alterations earlier.

Any “manifesto” must consider travel logistics, so supporters are not continually sent from the north to the south or vice versa for night games. Any “manifesto” should show more respect to fans, the lifeblood of the game.

THE TIMES