Football ain’t coming back soon, but will Man City come back at all?

There really does seem to be a feeling among many journalists that

a) this season will resume some time soon,

b) titles, promotion and relegation will be resolved in the normal way

c) next season will happen and all this will seem like a weird interlude of a few weeks.

But actually guys, no.   As Sean Ingle said in a Guardian article recently,  “We still don’t get it. Even now, as death tolls rise exponentially across Europe and the greatest economic crisis of our age deepens, the white lies persist. That the football season could be completed by mid‑July….”

He then added a little later, ‘Over the weekend I spoke to a leading expert, who is involved with the national response to the coronavirus pandemic, to ask him when sport as we know it – in front of packed crowds – might return. His response was sober and downbeat. “My expectation is that this is something that is going to be around for a long period of time,” he said. “There are no silver bullets on the horizon. We are talking months and months – and perhaps even next year and beyond”.’

The expert (who asked to remain anonymous) noted that a vaccine would probably not be ready until August 2021.

And that’s not my finger slipping as it often does.  It is August 2021.

Yes, but, you may be saying, we could play behind closed doors.  The problem with that is if a single player or member of the training or managerial team in a club tests positive then the whole squad is out for two weeks.  Plus all the players of the other team that they have just played.

And all that is before you even think whether people who have been out of work since March 2020 will be ready to pay for their season tickets in July 2020.  Especially where there is still the risk of playing games with no crowd present.

Plus another thing, if matches are off and on like yoyos go up and down, Sky and BT Sprout are not going to be that amused.  What do they do – put a crew in each ground and hope?

The average club in the Premier League pays out £30m a week in wages before bonuses.  So they desperately want to come back to a scenario in which they earn some money.  But that’s not the point.  They simply won’t be allowed to.

 

7 Replies to “Football ain’t coming back soon, but will Man City come back at all?”

  1. As a City fan in the belief that football is corrupt, I love reading your blog but your cognitive dissonance when it comes to all things City is…well, cognitive dissonance.

  2. Man city disputing the law that found them guilty but questioning the authenticity of EUFA as body Hence suing EUFA unsuitability of finding them culpable in their (Man city) financial ethics that don’t confirm to FFP rules.
    Remember they man city are members of EUFA BY Their CHOICE NOT BY FORCE.

  3. My guess is that City will lose their case, accept any fine or suspension and continue on as if nothing ever happened. This is EUFA/FIFA,the sweet FA fondest dream…..a slap on the wrist, justice as seen to be marginally done and everything back to normal….move on,nothing to see here!

  4. Remember the match fixing before the Great War?…a national crisis and a couple of years later and it was quietly swept under the rug.

  5. OT: Gary Neville doesn’t get:

    Gary Neville doesn’t get gravity. It doesn’t matter the an English person named Newton is associated with gravity, Gary doesn’t get it.

    Add your own.

  6. I think this rule FFP was made up by the Elite Clubs in Europe Man Utd Jovent B Munich Real Basra to safe guard there continues place in Champion League. The Daft thing is clubs like Man Utd can have Dept of over 400 Million pounds and still buy players it’s a joke, Who made the Rules up two men who had there hand till Blatter and Plititan rouge

  7. If Elon Musk gave a damn, he wouldn’t be demanding societies reopen, he’d be finding the alternative to oil, so that the sheiks and sheikskys would be screwed, and Man City and Chelsea will have to win on merit, something neither has done since the early 1970s.

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