Why football should buy more time

Bill Shankly

Bill Shankly was evidently wrong and he knew it - he was just playing it for headlines. Football is not more important than life or death.

With the game at all levels in suspended animation because of the coronavirus crisis, it is fast becoming clear that an April 3 or 4 return is merely putting the fantasy into fantasy league.

There has been a lot of debate about finishing the season and starting again in August or even a little later. Wayne Rooney has suggested as much. But the latest medical forecasting expects the virus to last up to a year, to subside in June but come back again in the autumn/winter perhaps with even greater effect. The first jabs for the strain are next realistically expected for 18 months.

It that light, there seems only one sensible way for football to move ahead. Draw a line under it all until things settle down - until November if necessary. Forget next season altogether. Just restart this one whenever it is safe and some normality has returned to life.

Spread the games out a bit more to make them proper events rather than just another match in a rat-a-tat schedule. Forget any mid-winter break. Play the FA Cup in full and let's see some proper importance come back into the competition for once.

The League Cup, too. These games could be weekend fixtures instead of midweek ones. No need to send out the kids or reserve teams. A proper level playing field.

Jurgen Klopp

Pick up the European competitions where they left off. Play them out to a final.

Play some international friendlies - more than usual. Perhaps even the Home Internationals, as a one-off.

Play the Euros in next April/ May , if things pan out and schedule a few more rest days for teams.

This will give the players a long summer break and let them go on pre-season tours without moaning their players are burned out.

Play the World Club challenge at a sensible time so that Jurgen Klopp doesn't have to field the under 10s in a league game two days later.

Lower down the pyramid, play out the leagues to a finish. Then start a few mini-leagues - with teams playing each other only once, home or away, not both. OK it's not ideal and you could say it won't be entirely fair.

Stevenage in League 2 action at Cambridge United

But it will get clubs playing, get bums back on seats.

And what does it matter if that mini-league has a very large asterisk beside it in the record books? You go again fresh in August 2021, assuming all is well with the world again.

There would be plenty of football at some point to help smooth out players contract issues.

None of this is perfect. But ending leagues as they stand is a legal minefield and will leave the door open for major court challenges. And then what, un-relegate or un-promote teams?

Teams have not all played the same number of games. Aston Villa would in effect be punished because they missed a league game to play the Carling Cup final. Relegating them without finishing the season would be grossly unfair.

We know the game has its stakeholders and paymasters. But there are bigger forces at play here and they must shoulder some of the burden. Accept paying the usual fees for less product, just for a season. What good is their big fct contract if there is no product and clubs have gone bust? They have to get real and show a degree of flexibility that is being forced on the rest of us.

The government has made much of being 'on a war footing'. It is a silly comparison. The war was avoidable. But there was wartime football. There were regional leagues, with crowd numbers pegged for safety in the event of an air raid. The FA Cup was over two legs and if necessary replays.

TV is a major stakeholder

The rules can be amended to suit whatever all key stakeholders agree. Once the actual framework of whatever is agreed upon is in place, the details can be sorted around them, with compromise and an appreciation of the bigger picture needed to make a success of it.

Perhaps I am being a shade naive, but the game really must buy itself some time rather than rush in.

We have to remember this virus does not work to football's overcrowded timetable.

Even if the authorities got next season going this August as usual, what if the virus returns mi-season and wreaks even worse damage? It would merely compound some issues.

Lockdowns, for one, would presumably happen sooner second time around.

Above all, the players have too many demands placed on them these days. You only have to look at the number of top players we have been denied watching this season already, including the England captain, Harry Kane. Many of these injuries can be ascribed to playing too much football and having to play because colleagues are injured.

Harry Kane is injured

If they have more time, perhaps the players could be ambassadors and help build more bridges in the community as we try to get back on our feet. And they can get fit. Properly fit.

For once, England's players might be able to go into an international tournament without the crutches or mental exhaustion from a long season. It might even lengthen their careers.

I believe even some of these ideas could fly, given the will of all concerned. And give us our Saturday afternoons back.