The list of decent acts by a much-maligned group of workers should not be forgotten when all this is over.
So let’s hear it for all of football’s “pampered prima donnas” who stepped up to the plate while so many self-publicising tycoons who never stop banging on about the wealth they spread, treated loyal workers like unwanted tax demands.
I’ll miss people out, but for now let’s thank Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs for handing their hotels to the NHS, Joe Cole donating £25,000 to support health staff, Mark Noble digging deep for food banks along with all Liverpool, Manchester City and United players, Marcus Rashford providing food to vulnerable children, Wilfried Zaha handing his rental properties to the NHS, Pep Guardiola giving €1million for medical supplies in Spain and all the outreach workers at clubs digging deep to help the vulnerable in their communities.
Others will come forward as this crisis is yet to peak. As Stan Collymore suggested on these pages earlier this week, soon the high-earning members of the “football family” who play in the top flight may be asked by their union to give part of their salaries to lower league players who will inevitably face pay cuts.
The head of the family, Gordon Taylor, spoke about the need for football to pull together and set up a solidarity fund to help lower league players if government aid and the £50m EFL bailout is not enough. Encouragingly, the PFA chief executive says “nothing is off the table”.
So let me give him the greatest piece of PR advice he is ever likely to receive: lead by example and put your money where your mouth is to kick things off. This is your big shot at redemption Gordon, after the deluge of criticism you have rightly received over the years for being, by some distance, the highest-paid trade union leader on earth.
A year ago this week the 75-year-old bowed to pressure from within the PFA to stand down after 38 years, but said he would only do so after an independent review was complete. However, feet have been dragged all year and the full terms of reference for that review have only just been published. Meaning Taylor is still very much in charge. And, we discover, still picking up a £2m-plus pay package.
In 12 months of turmoil at the PFA he earned £2.02m, made up of a salary of £1.19m, £56,749 in benefits and a bonus of £777,183. The PFA have 5,000 members and 50,000 ex-members. The general secretary of Britain’s biggest trade union, Dave Prentis, is paid £138,551 to lead Unison’s 1.4million members.
What an opportunity, at a time when some footballers face hardship, for Taylor to right a wrong that has gone on for far too long, by giving some of that union money back to the people who need it.
By saying that for once I will live off the same salary as the leader of the country’s biggest union and donate the £1.88m difference (after tax) to a player solidarity fund, calling on everyone else who earns film star wages from football to contemplate a similar gesture.
In doing so Gordon, you will shoot down your many critics, forcing us to say “better late than never. Well done.” These are unprecedented times and call for unprecedented actions.
Go on comrade, give it a go, and be remembered as someone who didn’t just earn a hell of a lot of money out of football but some respect, too.
