Never Waste A Crisis: Covid-19 Trauma Can Force Sport To Change For Good theguardian.com

Elite sport will be fine in the end but the entire structure needs rethinking and taxpayers’ money should go to the grassroots

Barney Ronay
Barney Ronay
@barneyronay
Thu 24 Sep 2020 19.30 BST

10
Pack up the flags. Close the turnstiles. Cover the plastic seats with an inspirational tarpaulin. The gates are being closed. And frankly it is anyone’s guess when they might be open again.

The news this week that the government has withdrawn its mandate for the staged return of spectators to professional sport has been greeted with dismay, and at times a barely contained sense of anger, among those whose job it is to keep the industry wheels clanking along.

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Football has spoken loudest in the last couple of days, with the EFL chairman Rick Parry stating that clubs stand to lose a further £200m if the entire season is given over to ghost games. The talk in Premiership Rugby is already of bankruptcy or even a reversion to amateur status should the current disaster-scenario timeline continue to its logical end. Point to a sport, any sport, and the story is the same: crisis, collapse, a chasm of debt.

There have been suggestions already of a government bailout, a possibility that comes with two significant caveats. First, the chancellor is not minded to include the Premier League or Championship in any financial aid, understandably so given the endless spume of TV rights payments and the inanity of player salaries.