You should never waste a good crisis

THERE’S something kind of callous about it when you think about it. At the same time there’s an obvious truth to it too. You should never, ever, let a good crisis go to waste. You don’t ever want to think of anything good coming out of a crisis like the one we’re living through – what’s good about it? – but there does exist that possibility for positive change.

It’s human nature that we become somewhat sclerotic in our thinking, accepting things as being the way they are without ever properly challenging the underlying assumptions. Sometimes it takes something monumental to shake us out of our complacency. Remember how before the crisis a rent freeze was considered something of a fringe idea by the mainstream political parties, only for those same parties weeks later to turn on their heels and implement one? Remember how a single tier health system was considered a pipe dream, right up until it wasn’t any more?

Okay these are temporary measures and can be and probably will be rolled back to a certain extent, but no longer will it be able to be claimed that they’re impossible. They can be done if – big if – we have the political will. Ireland will have been changed forever by COVID-19 and not all of that change will be for the worse.

The same goes for all walks of life including sport. COVID-19 has forced a reckoning in a lot of areas. The Chairman of the English Football League Rick Parry was speaking to a House of Commons committee meeting on Tuesday afternoon about the need for a fresh settlement for the sport at all levels, from the top to the lower leagues. Assumptions are being challenged and structures tested in a way they simply wouldn’t have been before. Parry probably would have been calling for a lot of this stuff before the shutdown, but now he’s more likely to get a hearing and to get some of his ideas implemented (he’s outspoken against parachute payments).

The upper echelons of football are probably going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming to a new more equitable settlement, just as the big teams in F1 have been towards a new budget cap by Ross Brawn and the sport’s owner, Liberty Media. There’s been a clear need for an effective budget cap for years now to bridge the gap between the haves and the have nots in the sport, but it took COVID-19 to make it a reality. The previous budget cap was set at such a high level as to be effectively meaningless. At $145m a year – a still ludicrous figure – it stands some chance of working.