How health isn’t only dilemma facing stars
That’s impossible. If it were, according to one government source, no business would ever get back.
The idea of getting back to pre-covid football is thereby a fantasy, and may be for a long time. There have to be compromises to continue.
The assessment everyone has to make is how great they want that compromise to be.
“There is going to be a wider societal change in the way we think about risk,” the government source said. “If players don’t want to play they basically won’t be playing football until there’s a vaccine. I suspect the rest of society will be back.”
It is not that football is being subjected to different treatment, then, it is that it is being subjected to the same thought process as every non-essential business.
At the same time, players have been told they will not be forced to return. The government’s 14-point plan explicitly states any decision will be “personal”, and involve written consent.
Players have been some way wary of this since they don’t want to sign waivers, and that has raised the complicated problem of “liability if the unthinkable happens”.
It is obvious, however, clubs will have to allow for opt-outs.
“I will inform my player of the likely consequences of such a decision,” one agent says. “Then I’d fight the club on his behalf.”
One of those consequences might be much more practical. A player would not be able to sell himself, at a time when this is not a player’s market.
Clubs will be open-minded about this. Many sources believe players will be the same. They maintain the majority want to go back and, as in Germany, those with concerns will likely just go along with team-mates.
Germany itself could prove influential. If Bundesliga games are played with minimal problems, it will cause a shift. It will feel more “normal”.
Part of the wider problem with this is it’s involved a change to life so unprecedented that, psychologically, any change within that feels like a massive risk.
The extent of risk, however, is ultimately what everyone is going to have accept. This is the new reality, for what may be a new era of football. It comes with big dilemmas. The biggest is on those at the heart of the sport.