Give the NHS agents’ fees

THE Premier League, we are told, is worried that it is looking ‘ petulant’ and ‘ridiculous’ in the face of the coronavirus crisis. It is right to be worried. The first thing it needs to do is officially scrap the absurd idea that there is any chance of football returning on April 30. At a time when the nation is in lockdown, that notion is more than insulting. It is obscene.

It appeared from the outset that the date was almost random; a desperate gesture to football’s paymasters at Sky and BT Sport; an empty declaration of intent to try to reassure everyone that, while so many around them were falling sick, football would sail through this in immunity and come running back out on to the pitch next month as if nothing had happened.

Instead, all that April 30 date did was reinforce the worst opinions of the Premier League: that it is a league in denial; a league so bloated with cash that it is out of touch with reality and that it deludes itself that, while hospitals and their staff fight against the pandemic and the body count rises, the public harbour a desire to return to its stadiums.

Anyone with even a fleeting grasp of reality could see that was not going to happen and the expectation is that the Premier League will accept that in the days ahead. So here’s some advice: don’t set another date f or resumption. However much you want to protect that television revenue, that will just make you look even more stupid and even more greedy.

It is time for the Premier League to start showing some leadership. And by that, I don’t mean sending out instructions that clubs should avoid using the word ‘void’ for the prospect of a cancelled season and replace it with ‘curtailed’. That is fear dressed up as leadership. The Premier League may have been built on greed but it is never too late to change.

STRONG leadership sometimes means responding t o difficult times i n brave, radical ways. The Premier League has brought us outstanding entertainment but it has become known as a league that takes. It rips off families for new kits every few years, it charges fans extortionate amounts to watch its teams, it prices traditional fans out of the market with season tickets.

Now that the pandemic has hit, Premier League clubs will start asking their players to take pay cuts, just as Barcelona have done. Expect a series of announcements to that effect in the next fortnight as clubs step up negotiations with players and ask them to carry their share of the cost.

It is time for the clubs to give something back, too. Give more. In times of crisis like this, people can see more clearly. They step back and see the bigger picture suddenly. What is right and what is wrong seems more obvious. The Premier League’s flaws blink and scream at us like the neon in Piccadilly Circus. And when we are re-evaluating so many other things in our lives, why should football be exempt?

We are seeing individual players make big donations to those in need. And we are seeing people like Gary Neville and Roman Abramovich and Wilfried Zaha offer space in their hotels and properties for NHS workers. Manchester City and Manchester United made a modest donation to foodbanks. Manchester City have offered the NHS free use of the Etihad Stadium. Liverpool, Bournemouth, Ever ton and Watford have offered different kinds of help. Brighton pledged free tickets for NHS workers. These are all fine gestures.

But the Premier League needs to do more. Its corporate inaction is not a good look. So take what you give to agents and give it to the NHS. Even if it is just for one transfer window. Remember that between February 2018 and the end of January 2019 top-flight clubs paid a record £260.6 min fees to agents. Do yourself a favour and cut the umbilical cord to the agents just for a month. Do something good with the money you save.

In the scheme of things, how much harm can that do to the football business? Especially if you all stand united. Get together and announce that the Premier League is giving £100m to the NHS. Give some more money to the EFL, too. It would buy some goodwill and when we get through this, the Premier League is going to need it.

And stop fli p- flopping about whether to void the season or resume it. Provide some clarity. Get together with the broadcasters. You both need each other, after all. Football will struggle without Sky and Sky will struggle without football. This is a time for unity. Not for bartering.

So accept that voiding the season is the worst of all the options. Void it and you wipe out a chunk of its history. You tell Sergio Aguero that, actually, he isn’t our leading foreign scorer any more. You tell Liverpool they aren’t champions. You tell Leeds they aren’t promoted. And presumably, you tell Odion Ighalo he never moved to Manchester United and Christian Eriksen that he never left Spurs. And so on.

And by the way, void the season and it is tantamount to telling Sky and BT Sport that they can have all their money back. Because if the season is voided, then the games were never played and we never really watched them.

At the very least, the television companies would have a strong case for claiming that, with roughly a quarter of the season left, they are entitled to a 25 per cent refund.

Everyone knows that football pales into insignificance compared with the crisis the country is facing but that does not mean we have to leap straight into a nonsensical knee-jerk like wiping out the results from three-quarters of the season. The solution is simple: resume the season when we have begun to recover. That may be late summer. That may be autumn. But resume it. Play it to a finish.

And if you are obsessing about what happens in 2020-21 or you are objecting because there will be legal actions or you are worried the players might feel overworked, then I’m afraid you are missing the point. Spectacularly.

All the old certainties have gone. The Premier League lived in a world of cosy assumptions and those have gone, too. It is time for its clubs to stop thinking quite so much about the money they will lose and think more about the money they have wasted.

Maybe, when football does come back, they will have to think less about what fans can do for them and more about what they can do for fans. Let’s hope so.