Clubs must adjust to new reality as virus crisis grips our game
We could all murder a bit of good news and a bit of a laugh.
Sadly, with a nuclear winter about to descend over our game, humour is in short supply.
But let’s give it a try.
Gallows humour will have to do and the SPFL’s rescue payment announcement last week was a bit of a rib-tickler .
Anyone who doubts what regard our lower-league clubs are held in need look no further than the respective cheques that were sent out in the post.
League One clubs banked £2700 and League Two clubs £1350 – plus VAT mind.
That windfall was bolstered by advance payments of £1.5million from the SFA shared across the game, with the likes of Stenhousemuir scooping a grand total of £8000.
So much for solidarity then in these dark times.
Some clubs at the bottom end of the food chain will now become collateral damage to the fallout from the coronavirus crisis.
Survival of the fittest will now be the way.
There’s going to be a new reality at play when football finally gets a restart date – and when that will actually arrive is anyone’s guess.
We are witnessing the five stages of grief at clubs and Scottish football will never be the same.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Clubs will soon be calling on players to follow the lead of Hearts and accept a salary cut.
Look no further than
Aberdeen and their chairman Davie Cormack as he urged the club’s insurers to “do the right thing” and continue to cover them in the wake of this crisis.
He’s insistent he won’t be doing a Ann Budge by inflicting wage cuts on Dons players and staff.
But there’s major number crunching going on at Pittodrie with Corrmack ‘calling sponsors, seasonal dining box holders’ as well as praising fans for already buying season tickets for next campaign.
But there will need to be a recalibration of wages paid out as a percent of turnover as harsh economic pressures come to pass.
Take a look across the continent.
Damage limitation is taking place with a savagery that highlights the severity of a situation which takes big-name casualties before it’s finally played out.
Swiss club Sion have sacked nine players, including the former Arsenal pair Alex Song and Johan Djourou, after refusing a proposal that would have seen the highest earners take a 80 per cent pay reduction.
A legal minefield will ensue as the club claim just cause but the players’ stance is that the deal involved a government support package for “partial unemployment” that had not been put into law for footballers at that point.
Players at German clubs Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Borussia Mönchengladbach have taken temporary pay cuts to help lower-paid employees.
Barcelona’s squad rejected a plan to defer 70 per cent of their wages and now their bloated salaries will be halved.
You can expect clubs across the continent to follow suit.
The suspension of football is set to claim the vulnerable and clubs who have lived a handto-mouth existence without paying attention to making provision for a rainy day.
Football is also about to deploy a hidden truth – footballers are selfish and the bottom line at clubs is that it’s every man for himself.