Virus fear will deter fans until vaccine
I’m so shabby at matters of accountancy I don’t even trust myself to fill in my tax return.
But even a back-of-a-fagpacket economist like me can sense that the worsening of the pandemic is a financial disaster in the making.
It’s taking longer to get fans back inside football grounds and large outgoings with no income for six months has emptied pockets throughout Premiership boardrooms.
A meteor heading towards the game was the description used to summarise Covid-19 initially. A further tightening of lockdown restrictions for an indeterminate length of time would take the game into intensive care.
How long can fans whose own jobs might be under threat as a consequence of the coronavirus continue to prop up clubs punished by the pandemic?
The appetite for the game is undeniably still there on the basis that absence makes the heart grow fonder.
The Scottish game is largely dependent on people coming through the door. Without that income stream for months, one of two strategies – or even both – could be forced on hard-pressed clubs.
One would be massive redundancies to cut playing squads to a bare minimum and the other is selling your best players.
SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster says the very future of the game here might depend on the test events that took place at Aberdeen and Dingwall yesterday.
But it’s not just about the results we’ll get in two weeks’ time to say what effect, if any, those relatively small gatherings had on the coronavirus spike.
The reaction of the silent majority still has to be assessed. There are people who will not go back inside any football ground until there’s a vaccine that allows them to go and return home without the subconscious fear they could infect family members.
How many are of that mindset will be of crucial importance when determining the way forward.
There’s a hard winter coming for the game. We should brace ourselves for it and hope for the best.