The most exciting news this week was the slim prospect of English football coming back.
I have to declare a vested interest here on two counts.
First we need to get the season going again as quickly as possible to return Leeds United to their rightful position in the top-tier of English football.
Second, what are you supposed to do with a weekend if there’s no sport on?
Take Sundays for example.
It is possible, with the right subscriptions, to turn on the TV on a Sunday lunchtime and get straight down to the early football kick-off.
Add a laptop, angled nicely and with the sound down, to keep an eye on the golf/cricket/competitive deep-sea fishing and you’re all set.
Another game on the telly in mid afternoon then one at teatime.
Then a couple of games from the French league, or – at a push – some hot Bundesliga action.
And when that’s over you face the usual weekly struggle between watching something from South America or trying to work out where, and indeed when, your girlfriend went.
Blissful. So I’m in a hurry to get the game back. But not at any price.
This week Rick Parry, the chairman of the English Football League, appeared in Parliament to talk about the crisis facing clubs.
Mr Parry said lots of his members were stacking up creditors and it was difficult to say how many of them will go out of business.
There are some though it’s tough to feel sympathy for.
Owners of clubs in the Championship put in £380million of their own money every year.
As Mr Parry said: “That’s about £16million per club of owner funding, which probably makes that the most expensive lottery ticket on the planet – that is all with a view to trying to get up into the Premier League.”
But there are other clubs – smaller and well-run – who could well go under in the coming months.
They rely on gate receipts and hospitality, income through catering and programme sales and all those other things that bring in the much-needed cash on match day. For their sakes, it’s important to get the season up and running again.
But you have to ask the question, in football and beyond – is the economic argument more important than the personal one?
There are a lot of players who can’t wait to get back to work.
But there are many more who have elderly relatives, or young families, and are concerned about playing again without it being properly safe.
I agree. And if that means underwriting business for a bit longer then so be it. Meantime, there is live South Korean football on and it needs to be watched. Jeonbuk had the best of the first half but I wouldn’t rule out Suwon nicking one.
The first game streamed by the BBC in two months. Beautiful – although there is something lacking in a game played in the rain behind closed doors.
One plan for giving these empty stadiums a bit more atmosphere is to use cut-out fans made of cardboard.
Which all seems a bit unfair really when some of these teams already have plastic ones.
