JAMES MORGAN
When the new financial reality emerges and people come to take stock of what they need and what they don’t need, those companies who acted with compassion will be remembered and those who did not won’t be forgotten.
It speaks to a wider issue, too. Football clubs may also find themselves in a similar pickle over season-ticket money and membership, not to mention lost TV revenue. While that April 30 deadline for resumption has been set, speak to those inside the game and there is less confidence on a daily basis that it will be met.
Decisions taken by clubs can only be measured on a caseby-case basis. On Saturday, it was reported that Barcelona’s millionaire footballers could end up having their wages supplemented by tax payers. This is the new world order we might be facing and it appears no better than the old one.
A steady increase in carbon dioxide emissions over China, as seen from satellite pictures, was greeted as a positive sign that coronavirus was on the wane as people returned to work. There were images, too, of dolphins swimming in canals around Venice.
Cleaner air and clearer water was interpreted by some as the planet resetting itself. For others, the virus was invariably Mother Nature taking her revenge or some act of malevolence from a higher being in despair at our collective failings.
In reality, epidemiologists have been warning us of a global pandemic for years, as public health services have been cut and the world has contracted as a result of cheaper air fares.
There have been warnings, too, from football economists about the relative health of clubs and how their reckless spending was unsustainable when the TV money dried up.
Already we are seeing financial scenarios unfolding that place English Championship clubs in serious jeopardy, with Stoke City forecast to have burned any grant aid from government and the Football League within nine days.
When normality does return, the sport should view this as an opportunity to reset and take stock just as each and every one of us will have to do with our own budgets.
It will be a chance to realign, to reconsider old processes and, above all, to remember who acted with honour and who did not.