Sometimes, a single comment, in this case a tweet, can cause quite a lot of upset. You know, an off the cuff comment that is construed not quite as you intended or a strongly held opinion that you have that just doesn’t seem to be the same as everyone else’s?
Well, on Friday Sky Sports tweeted this:
Premier League clubs will be warned at a meeting on Monday that the season not restarting at neutral venues could cost them more than relegation and they must consider the long-term consequences of voting against the proposal.
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) May 8, 2020
The outbursts that followed from fans of lots of different teams was pretty large in number.
Here’s a sample of the sort of response it got. I can’t publish the majority of them as they mostly include industrial language.
This highlights what we all know , football is not about the fans or the clubs now, it’s all about the money ,the only thing that matters, and they will bully ,blackmail, to make sure the season finishes in any way or form they don’t care, neutral grounds is wrong and unfair
— Daniel lewis (@danlewis1982) May 9, 2020
@premierleague and your current buzz word is integrity, what an embarrassment you truly are. Corrupt to the core.
— garysmith1971 (@garysmith1971) May 8, 2020
Voting for the proposal could cost the lives of the clubs players. Just wait until it's safe for goodness sake.
— Someone (@individual35837) May 8, 2020
https://twitter.com/nullandvoidfc/status/1258787931596218369?s=21
Knew this would happen. Smaller clubs bullied into a decision.
— CFCDaily (@CFCDaily) May 8, 2020
So in reality, they are asking clubs to be willing to sacrifice themselves in order to save the rest? 🤷🏻♂️ In the most money driven, self-entitled business in the world, that is a new level of stupid right there…
— Chrsmo (@Chrsmo) May 8, 2020
You get the idea.
So it now seems that the bottom six, who might just be trying to make the best decision for their own clubs going forward are being accused of trying to stop Project Re-start with it being described as more like Project Sabotage in some media reports.
The bottom line here is very simple. The Premier League and all it’s members want to maximise their cash revenue, that is obvious and no different to any other business. The Government have indicated that they would like football to return to “boost the morale of tabloid readers, (sorry, the public)” who might be feeling a bit low because they can’t get to the bookies or the pub at the moment.
The reality of lockdown is that it has happened because of a global pandemic that the human race has not seen the like of since the Spanish Flu in 1918-20. People are dying and still continue to die. The daily death toll is approaching 31,000 lives lost in England, that is more than the whole capacity of Carrow Road and with another 600+ deaths reported on Friday, it doesn’t seem to be slowing too much.
The tabloid papers on Thursday carried ridiculous front pages that suggested an almost complete relaxation of lockdown will come into place this Monday after the Prime Minister addresses the nation on Sunday evening. That is reckless in the extreme and seems, from the outside, just a cynical move to sell papers that otherwise wouldn’t be sold. It also says a lot about those that buy such papers.
Are they just good hearted souls who are desperate for some good news? Or, are they just the permanently annoyed people, that our country seems to be full of, who hate the fact that the local ‘Spoons is still closed?
I have no doubt that the fact this was a Bank Holiday weekend made up the PM’s mind that he’d leave restrictions fully in place until after the weekend, especially with the weather forecast to be very good and VE Day being on Friday.
Look at what Wales announced on Friday and expect something similar for England, I think.
The Premier League has been a ridiculous money making scheme for football players for years. It has become more and more wealthy and the vast, vast majority of what it makes in TV revenue goes into the pockets of the players in wages. Football clubs make very little profit and in the real world a business model like this would be laughed out of the boardrooms of every top company in the world.
“Look at Germany starting to play football again,” the numpties cry, but in Germany, the death toll is under 8,000, and that figure is sad enough.
The psyche of large swathes of the Great British public seems to me to be very different from the rest of Europe. That’s why so many people have, and continue to, breach the lockdown rules. It is the British way to ignore rules and famously the German way to stick to them. It’s what helped Britain adapt to help us win the Second World War. In these current circumstances though it has helped the virus to get hold in Britain and kill more people than almost anywhere else, only America have worse figures.
In Germany, France, Italy and Spain there have been severe lockdowns with footage freely available of European Police forces dealing with lockdown breaches, often forcefully. If that happens here there is an outcry.
“It’s essential I get to B&Q, I’m taking my daily exercise, I’m on my way to the shops for essential food”etc, etc, etc. Make no mistake, in the UK our wishy washy government have made the lockdown unenforceable by our Police and that is a fact.
The latest Premier League threats are frankly a disgrace but should we expect any better? I would be quite happy if the Norwich City players decided to just sit down (2 metres apart, of course) and refuse to play. Let them relegate us because I don’t want anymore of this nonsense.
People are dying but the show must go on?!
OTBC
Excellent article Tuckster and I agree with it all.
The entire situation in Britain has not been handled well and I am not a Tory but these people are only human with a salary of about 2 weeks wages for a premier league footballer.
What do we expect them to do ?
You are correct about people from Britain being different to most other countries and that is why we are eventually pulling out of Europe but this does not assist us in the current battle.
There are idiots everywhere around the world but in Britain there are so many things to deal with when trying to enforce a lock down. The media make things so much worse. They home in on the smallest one off incident regarding policing rather than look at a way of getting the country together and trying to adhere to the rules to help everyone of us.
It is pathetic how they are so desperate to get a story ahead of the official lock down restrictions.
Like Tuckster I have nothing but despair for tabloids, their so called journalists and readers who actually read and believe their ‘ stories ‘.
Anyway back to football. The leagues have to be abandoned as there is no fair way of finishing season or adapting the current tables.
As a Norwich fan would I be saying this a year ago ? Yes I would. Since when does a country known for fair play and compassion put greediness and a sport above human lives.
Our family has several key NHS workers and how do you think they feel when the greediness of the premier league and obscenely paid footballers are even considered to have priority over testing and results so they can make more money whilst British people die every day.
We all knew that the Premier league was obsessed with greed but seeing the thinly veiled disguise
of putting money above peoples lives is a disgrace.
After 50 years I am now falling out of love with football.
Agree 100 % and there is a serious danger that many football lovers will fall out with the game having now predictably seen the premier league in it’s true colours, I now absolutely hate that league. I actually hope that a European League IS formed and all these greedy big fish clubs sign up to it ( where of course they will find they are not such big fish after all, but you can be sure they will protect themselves by not having relegation ). This will be the only thing that can redress the balance of football in this country for the benefit of the fans. An unrealistic pipe dream of mine I know but it just shows how disillusioned I have become after following football for 55 years
Bang on the money.
Excellent article mate.
It feels like it just had to be said. Thanks for your support, guys.