Road to recovery begins down south
A SIGN OF THE TIMES... Leitch says SPFL can follow English restart
THE OLD one-liner about timing being everything is as applicable to Scottish football as it is to slapstick comedy. Feel free to fill in your own punchline, obviously.
If the wise words of Jason Leitch are anything to go by, we can at least put some kind of time frame on the beautiful game’s return north of the Border.
To hear Scotland’s national clinical director tell it, the only significant difference between English football — still aiming for a June 12 resumption — and its Caledonian counterpart can be measured on a curve.
They are further along it than us, making it possible for limited team training to begin as early as next week for Premier League clubs.
Provided there are no disastrous spikes there, and assuming our own downward trend continues, we won’t be that far behind our neighbours.
Sound good? Indeed. But, unfortunately, it’s not nearly as simple as that. Nothing ever is, in the current climate.
While Leitch sounds optimistic, he is also blunt in his detailing of what sports — rugby, football and others — must do to satisfy the Scottish Government that even closed-doors fixtures won’t be a risk to public health.
And there are, of course, dissenting voices. Including one senior politician who believes that fans attending football before next March — that’s ten long and horrible months away — is a pipe dream.
Former MP Sir Brian Donohoe, who bases his judgment on discussions with medical experts in his role as chair of Parliament’s pension fund, even has doubts over whether closed-door games will be possible before then.
So, are we really talking about the Betfred Cup kicking off as scheduled in July? Don’t bank on it.
Without the finance to fund the kind of safety measures being put in place down south, the new campaign in August seems a better outside bet.
Leitch, explaining the hurdles that need to be cleared before that can happen, revealed: ‘Every Tuesday, the clinical and science advisers of the four nations meet.
‘The advice doesn’t look that different across the nations. What looks a wee bit different is where we are on the curve of the virus.
‘The north east of England is in a different place from London, Belfast might be different from Edinburgh.
‘So there might be nuance and there might be slight differences, but not massive differences.
‘I think that will be true of elite and recreational sport, as well. There might be slight timing differences. But, in the main, we’ll try to do that as a four-nation effort.’
Scottish sports minister Joe FitzPatrick met with representatives from the SPFL, SFA and SRU last week, via video conference, to answer questions about our competitions moving out of suspended animation.
Leitch, who was also on the call, told the official Scottish Rugby podcast yesterday that the process for ‘Project Restart’ was built on some fairly basic principles.
‘Those conversations are not that different from the conversations about getting coffee shops back or garden centres back,’ he said, adding: ‘It’s about safety of workers — and safety of customers.
‘The individual sector has a responsibility to do some of that work themselves. To look across the world and think about what the best practice might be.
‘Then the Scottish Government has a responsibility to say: “Here’s the high-level guidance. Here’s what we think is required for safety and public health”.
‘And, eventually, we’ve also got a responsibility to give you times for that. We can’t do that yet — but eventually we’re going to have to do that.
‘It’s then your responsibility to link those two things together.’
There are, of course, some major differences between the footballing environment created by the English Premier League and what we have up here.
Speak to people who write the cheques and balance the books in Scottish football and, quite frankly, you’ll find agreement — a rarity — on a couple of key issues.
First, no one of any standing believes that season 2019-20 can be completed on the field of play.
Second, there just isn’t the money to copy an English model likely to involve clubs spending hundreds of thousands of pounds per fixture on safety measures.
While there’s an acceptance that closed-door games might be required for a spell, no Scottish clubs can survive very long without gate receipts.
A prolonged spell without fans would be catastrophic, in an economic sense, to the game.
Which is why the warnings of Donohoe, the former MP for Central Ayrshire, should be such a concern.
‘I’m still chairman of the House pension fund and I’ve just spent the last 90 minutes listening to experts,’ Sir Brian told Sportsmail yesterday. ‘And these experts tell me that, in Scotland, there will be no football with crowds until there is a vaccine available here.
‘So, while I don’t like the expression, I still find at odd that so many in Scottish football aren’t looking at the big picture.
‘I genuinely think clubs may be told that there can be no football until March next year. If that’s right, they should finish this season then.’
That would certainly be a bold move, putting the entire game in mothballs until next Spring.
Fortunately, the medical experts haven’t gone quite that far in their recommendations. Not yet, anyway.
Surely they’ll find a way to get our awkward little corner of the global game back on its feet before then. Given a bit of time.