The cost of a barrel of oil has just turned negative in the USA for the first time in history.
Meanwhile Richard Branson, estimated worth £4billion, has offered Necker Island as a guarantee against a £500million loan from the British taxpayer to prop up his Virgin Airways empire.
What does that have to do with the price of fish – or, more specifically, Odsonne Edouard and Alfredo Morelos?
Our dear Hotline regulars have spent the best part of two years arguing the financial toss of the Old Firm’s star striking duo.
Inflation knows no bounds – Morelos may even have hit £60m at one point in September with one excitable caller – but what if rampant deflation renders the two of them worthless?
Worse than that, what if the new world order in which Scottish football is predicted to find itself renders the unthinkable and these big-name players become liabilities rather than assets?
Eight weeks ago Edouard was being tipped to go for at least £30m this summer, while Rangers have been holding out for at least £20m for their Colombian frontman. Two months on and the imminent collapse of football’s financial model, in light of worldwide economic devastation, is about to render those financial figures as fanciful.
Only a handful of players in the Scottish game will find themselves with a transfer worth and the vast majority will find themselves boasting a transfer value of zero.
Edouard at £8m, Morelos for £4m? Realistically, who will pay more in the big five leagues with the ever increasing wage bubble about to burst?
More than that, Celtic and Rangers have pushed the boat out in salaries and conditions to keep their prized assets feeling valued ahead of the inevitable sell on.
It’s not beyond the realms of possibility the highest earners at Parkhead and Ibrox decide to sit tight, even if a move is on the table, because they’re on more money under their current contracts than they would be in future deals.
A new reality is about to hit the game and if the big two are beginning to sweat, think about clubs in the English Championship where wages to turnover ratios frequently top 120 per cent.
The second tier of the English senior game has also been a lucrative destination for many Premiership players and although we all have degrees in hindsight, Aberdeen must now wince at knocking back those multi-million pound offers for Scott McKenna.
There will be no sugar daddies to bail out cash-strapped clubs because if serial entrepreneurs such as Branson have reached for the government begging bowl, you can bet cosmopolitan club owners from Thailand to Timbuktu are also feeling the pinch.
Wage deflation will have a trickle-down effect and if Scottish clubs survive at all, it may force many to move part-time and offer salaries of £10,000-a-year instead of £25,000 for full-time pros.
It may take up to five years for the transfer market to return to its values of 2019 and even if they could there is unlikely to be an appetite for clubs to spend tens of millions on playing talent.
The world is a different place these days and worse is predicted to come. It would be a brave and crass club owner, even at the biggest outfits, who forks out megabucks on an athlete at a time when unemployment queues are likely to be longer than the demand for tickets.
Scottish football finances are about to be holed, maybe even irreparably, for many of our clubs.
The prospect of the Old Firm playing to crowds of 10,000, on the back of strict social distances guidelines, is likely to become a reality – if we even get the game up and running before the autumn.
The financial consequences will be dire. The Hotline, as always, will be in meltdown.
