There is no wriggle room for a random setback... football’s full

WE HAVE got a few weeks to ourselves now, it seems. So time for a think. About scheduling, about Financial Fair Play, about who owns football and why. The self-isolation of coronavirus is the chance to consider where the game is going.

No one could have foreseen this crisis, so blame is worthless. Football’s hierarchy could have been pro-active, their messages clearer, but the same could be said of government, too.

Jurgen Klopp really should not have had to tell Liverpool supporters to put their hands away at Anfield on Wednesday night. They should have known better by then.

But now we are here, let us not waste the opportunity. The reason any postponement of the programme has come as a last resort — and only once it was thoroughly unavoidable after players and coaches began testing positive — is because there is no room in the schedule. Not now, not ever. If the season kicks into the summer, as it almost certainly must, the 2020-21 campaign cannot be put back because of the rescheduled European Championship, and that tournament cannot go later because of the unusual positioning of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. All events that were agreed without consideration for the wider geographical and human impact. There is no room to wriggle, no space for the random setback, the unplanned event. Football is full.

The 2020 Euros were poorly conceived, so was Qatar 2022, even without the spectre of corruption. This is before we get to English football’s little indulgences: FA Cup replays, two-legged League Cup semi-finals, all crushing the calendar in chaos, until it resembles a rush-hour London tube train or the skies above Heathrow mid-afternoon. And then we wonder why everyone gets sick.

We might want to have a look at FFP, too — or at least stop making pariahs of owners who wish to invest. If anything is going to pull football through this crisis it is those owners who are prepared to bankroll their clubs because not everyone has the good fortune to be as wellheeled and protected as Manchester United.

There are plenty of competently run clubs who could not cope with postponements stretching over months, as may yet happen, however optimistic football remains about recommencement on April 3. So maybe stop demonising generous owners. Football needs them more than ever, particularly if the coronavirus makes an annual return, as some scientists fear.

Finally, this might be the time to consider football’s priorities and whether it should continue developing as the plaything of a privileged elite. It is not right that the thought of a month’s hiatus makes so many clubs fear for their future, while Andrea Agnelli of Juventus presumes to act as gatekeeper for the Champions League. This model is failing if the richest clubs in the world still do not believe they make enough money.

That is enough to be getting on with. Football should use its break wisely.