If You're Looking For Leadership........

then don’t expect to find any from the PL, the EFL or a majority of well paid footballers.

We know from bitter recent experience just how inept the EFL are and indeed continue to be. Similarly the PL has a comparable track record.

However, we are in unprecedented times and given that, one might think it’s not too much to hope that these particular leopards might change their spots! You fools! The one constant in the ever changing face of daily life is that it’s business as usual for them.

Presented with a pandemic their immediate, short-sighted decision was to postpone football matches for a couple of weeks with their procrastination resulting in that decision only made the day before the vast majority of games were to be played.

Only they could compound that decision by a couple of weeks later deciding to move on to another unrealistic deadline of 30^th April. As far as I’m aware this is still the deadline. God give me strength!

Our nation is, save for the key workers, stuck indoors. Therefore, you’d be forgiven for thinking it allows an opportunity to come up with some rational plan for the way ahead. Time enough, even for the good people at those organisations, to produce proposals for a number of potential scenarios.

Their silence is deafening so one must assume that no such plans are forthcoming. Of course not, their overriding objective is to keep alive the hope of ending the season and minimising revenue loss.

There is absolutely no desire to end the uncertainty for players, staff and fans alike by simply writing off the season.

We ought not to be surprised by any of this. For its part the PL was born out of greed. No matter how anyone might want to dress it up that is the reality pure and simple.

At its inception we were told that the aim of the new Premier League was to improve the standard of the domestic game and further, that of the national team. The promised land would make our England team more competitive. Well, we’ve seen just how well that’s gone.

Back in the day when we had smaller squads and plenty more games we were so much more competitive than now. We even had the home internationals offering 3 more games at the end of a long season. All played in a week too if I remember correctly.

Any uncertainty over the avaricious nature of the PL and the majority of the teams in it is being ably demonstrated now. The inaction of many clubs and their players speaks volumes.

Whilst Barcelona’s players have just taken a 70% pay cut to protect their staff, Newcastle United and Spurs have just furloughed their staff. I say staff in the loosest sense of the word as it would appear that the furloughing doesn’t extend to the players.

Why would it? They’re having to struggle on their meagre salaries most of which offer more in a week than the majority of the country earns in a year!

Two clubs with massive assets in terms of players alone are coming cap in hand to the taxpayer. Meanwhile smaller, family runs businesses will go to the wall when a fraction of a PL player’s weekly wage would save them.

I’m not sure this is what the furlough scheme is for.

I keep reading about the need to finish this season to maintain the integrity of the leagues and football in general. A bit too late for late and with every passing day, whatever perceived integrity there was vanishes further into thin air.

Their desire to finish this season is driven only by the financial rewards central to their very being. They don’t want to kill the goose that, upto now, has laid the most golden of golden eggs.

By contrast, those clubs in rugby chasing less attractive eggs are having to cut wages across the board. For them, staff means anyone working for their clubs.

At the same time comparatively wealthy Newcastle United and Spurs are kindly passing the funding and support of its non-playing staff to the tax payer. 

Those overpaid players not even doing what they’re paid for ( through no fault of their own I know ) sit at home counting their money as there is little else to do and nothing to spend it on at the moment.

Are the fans of any club expecting a refund on their season tickets when this season is cancelled? As Charlton fans we’ll just be grateful if we have club. No, we’ll have written that off and in many ways given the bigger picture I don’t care.

There are many businesses and organisations dear to me that are going to need support once this mess is over. I’ll quite happily and expect to make donations to do so. Sadly, that’s not matched by football’s elite and wealthy…….a truly damning indictment of football’s governing bodies.