The NHS and football - can Coronavirus make a difference?

There's been a lot written in the press and various chatrooms relating to footballers - particulary the highly paid "superstars" of the Premiership - and their response (or lack of) to the Coronavirus epidemic.  It's part of a wider narrative about how the sport has acted so far, when play has been forced to a standstill so close to season's end.

Let's take the second bit first.  It seems to me with the virus still raging across the world, talking of being able to re-start the season in May and finishing it by mid-summer, using the windows offered by UEFA's pragmatic decision to suspend the Champions League and Europa League competitions indefinitely and move the scheduled international Euro 2020 finals into 2021 to do so, is a little over-optimistic.  There is still so much medical scientists and the WHO still do not know about the virus - for instance whether there could be a second outbreak in Asia (which is at present pretty stable) or elsewhere that could again spread globally if travel restrictions are relaxed too soon.  There is still no sign of a vaccine yet (despite what certain peole seem to think, the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is not currently approved against COVID), and probably won't be for several months.  There is even argument going on in some places as to whether social distancing, self-isolation and working from home are making an appreciable difference to the spread of the virus.  Masks?  Depending where you get your news from, they're either very good prevention or practically useless.  The same goes for basic hygiene, despite the advice of every health advice bulletin, whether by governments or the WHO. 

It seems ridiculous to risk more lives simply out of a desperation to finish a few games of football, probably behind closed doors, to maximise prize money perhaps as part compensation for lost gate revenue.  It puts the Prem at odds with the FA, that has suspended all competitions below National League level, effectively ending the season now and voiding results, and the Football League, that has taken a similar stance as the FA but remains hopeful of continuing at some point.  National League clubs are broadly in favour of stopping now and voiding the season, but are taking further legal advice.

Clearly, there is no simple answer that will satisfy everybody.  Taking non-league as an example, a letter has been presented to the FA by a delegation of grass roots clubs asking to continue - noticably the clubs that are against an early end are the ones who may miss out on promotion and the most vocal in favour of scrapping the season are those in danger of relegation.  I can understand where they're coming from, but these are not ordinary circumstances - not by a long chalk. 

My own view is that the season should be scrapped now.  From the Prem right the way down.  No prizes awarded - no league champions, no promotion, no relegation.  Prize money to be distributed based on league position as of the date of suspension.  That's straightforward enough, and sorry Barrow (a country mile ahead of everyone else in the National League and nailed-on certainties for promotion to the EFL before this happened), and lucky you Stevenage, 10 points adrift at the bottom of League 2 and bound to replace Barrow in non-League.  C'est la vie.

But to take it further: next season should kick off as normal (health restrictions permitting), but with all teams starting with the SAME playing squad as this season - no player movements in or out for any club, and no summer transfer window.  A level playing field - to prevent, say, Man City spending another billion quid on players to close the gap on unlucky Liverpool.  The problem with this idea seems to me the issue of players whose contracts expire at the end of this season - what of them?  Should replacements be allowed or contracts extended?  The lower down the leagues you go, the bigger that issue becomes - in non-league most players are on yearly contracts, and that "year" is only 44 weeks.  They are not rolling contracts, and certainly not the multi-year deals prevalent in the game's upper echelons.  Most clubs from National League down lose the majority of their squads at the end of May and have to re-build every season.  How practical it is to consider offering new contracts to an entire playing staff at every club, or even if the players would agree to signing, is a fiendiishly difficult one, especially for the poorer part-time clubs. 

But back to my original question, about Prem players and their contribution: I think a good many of them are doing something already, as far as their clubs allow them too.  I'm sure all of them would happily contribute financially in some way at the very least.  It seems to me that clubs, perhaps understandably, want to protect their major assets, agents (who increasingly seem to run the lives of their client players) are even more reluctant since they have a vested in the players' market valuations (they would lose their 10% cut on any transfers that are no doubt being set up this very second), and the PFA, the union that is supposed to act on the players' behalf seem reluctant or unable to provide guidance to its members.  The result is a complete mess, with mega rich clubs like Spurs and Liverpool laying off part time match day staff and refusing to consider pay deferrals for high earners - in contrast to say Barcelona where management and players, Messi included, have accepted temporary pay cuts of 70% of salary to protect their part-time match day staff and provide additional funding to hard pressed Spanish health services.    I see no good reason why say Chelsea or Manchester United should not do something similar.

Government demands that players should be forced to do something are at best unhelpful.  Jordan Henderson, the Liverpool captain, has reportedly been working hard with the other club captains to put a scheme of some kind together that will provide additional funding to the NHS but is apparently having problems with clubs and the PFA providing only lukewarm support.  The PFA even stated that to apply a pay cut would "decrease the amount of tax paid that goes indirectly to the NHS so reduce their funding".  Gordon Taylor, the PFA's leader, is picking up a quarter of million a year (despite announcing he was retiring a couple of years ago), and his solution is to get "all stakeholders - players, clubs, the tv companies, agents....around a table to discuss it....and find a mutually agreeable solution". 

What nonsense!  The money is needed now, to provide additional safety equipment, oxygen supplies, ventilators and a hundred and one other things that are deperately needed for the NHS to cope with the crisis COVID is placing on the organisation.  If the idiot Taylor gets his way the discussions will STILL be going on this time next year - and I dread to think how many NHS staff, never mind their patients, will have died in that time.

I can't see why Henderson and his felow captains can't simply do a weekly whip-round of their players, collect the money that way and pass it on their local hospitals without needing  the club, agents and PFA to sanction it.  All the players know how critical the NHS is, all support it and all use it, the same as everyone else - I have no doubt the vast majority would be happy to dip into their bulging bank accounts and pay over ten grand a week each (the average salary is apparently something like seventy grand a week) in this way.  It's their money, surely, to spend as they see fit.  I would be suprised if many of them were not doing something similar privately in any case, simply not publiciising it.

Finally: it seems to me that football itself in England needs shaking up.  It seems desperately unfair that the 20 clubs in the Prem, with all their billions in tv and prize money, their billionaire owners (whether individuals or consortia), their players on contracts bringing in millions a year - not counting endorsements and bonuses - do nothing to help maintain and grow the grass roots game.  The smaller clubs all have a hand-to-mouth existence, surviving on gates in the hundreds, woth players on 44 week contracts (if any at all) and are extremely lucky to break even at the end of the season, never mind turn a profit.  The staff are frequently unpaid volunteers, making the club the lifeblood of their local community in a way that ALL clubs should be but often at the top table aren't - or at least these top clubs are more focused on their global following rather than the kid who lives two streets away and dreams of playing for them one day.

In my view there should be a contingency fund of some kind set up specifically to provide support to non-league clubs - that is from the National League down.  Contributions should be made by all clubs in the Prem, the Championship and Leagues 1 and 2, on a sliding scale based on league position (hence linked to prize money), with those clubs in European competition paying an additonal sum based on their UEFA prize money (paid per round and known in advance).  Additional funds could be taken as a percentage of gate receipts (since admission prices are known before games, often before the season starts, and the number of people admitted is known before the end of a game, this is a simple calculation to make).  The fund could be managed either by FA (that is responsible for the non-league pyramid that would benefit), probably in conjunction with some kind of fund administration company, or by a separate body set up specifically for the purpose. 

Let's go the whole hog: impose a limit on the value of a player's contract (no more £100,000 a week deals for a reserve or bench warmer, thank you very much!) and hence on agent's fees - in fact, peg those fees at no more than 2% of the player's agreed base salary (none of these 10% plus add on's crap), payable only on completion of the player's contract term.

The game, at least at the very top level, in England is broken.  Now is a good opportunity to start fixing it.