Covid stories part 6 — the facade of sporting integrity in football

Sunday May 17.

As time goes by, I’ve identified an increasingly impatient tone to getting football back on our screens. When matches were first cancelled (and to think they were still playing that Liverpool/Atletico match in mid-March), everyone seemed to understand it. Cue the usual patter …‘football is the most important of the least important things’ … but as time has gone on, the media (and even the Guardianistas) appear to think it’s fine for it to go back with the usual caveat ‘so long as it is safe to do so’, as long as we don’t ‘really’ have to interrogate what that actually means. What it does mean is that it ignores the wishes of players, staff and managers. And fans — the German fans did not want the Bundesliga to resume.

Watching even the most progressive Bundesliga yesterday seemed to highlight the utter naked self-interest of top-flight football. Playing football behind closed doors with no fans seemed devoid of meaning.

Don’t get me wrong — if I walk up to a local park, I can happily watch a game. I love the actual game but yesterday just felt plain wrong. Top-level football is for the fans within the stadium. And this is Germany, which is so many light years ahead of our response to Covid.

But we know what is behind the rush back to completing the season. Incidentally, well done to Port Vale for showing magnanimity to the EFL League 2, and agreeing to finish the season irrespective that it was not in their self-interest. Money, pure and simple. Nothing else. Some suggest it relates to sporting integrity. Some suggest the bottom clubs are spoilt brats not agreeing to resumption. Of course there is massive self-interest. But that self-interest revolves to their future income streams. Others have argued that it is important for the livelihoods of those employed by those clubs — as if that could not be taken care of by the owners, or indeed worse case, by the players taking a metaphorical haircut.

So let’s talk about sporting integrity. Sporting integrity happens when you complete a competition with the same conditions and rules in place at the end of the competition as at the beginning. So that means you don’t have sporting integrity in the following situations

• you introduce a rule of 5 substitutes per match, allowing richer clubs (who have better and more players) an unfair advantage
• this point would be bad enough if all your players are match-fit, but it is made worse when they won’t be
• which in turn means those with bigger, better squads will have much bigger advantages in rotating their teams, lessening the risk of injuries, thereby reinforcing their advantage
• some teams have to play more home matches with their fans not present (which give you an advantage) than other teams
• this is made even worse when those matches are against poorer teams in the division, making home advantage with fans less of an advantage
• small point though, in fairness this though would not be as unfair if you played matches at a neutral ground or if you took the whole of the Premier League to Perth in Western Australia

The other point with sporting integrity is that usually that would mean teams have a similar chance of winning a competition. We obviously have Financial Fair Play to do that. Except we know it is not remotely fair and most clubs try to circumnavigate the rules. We know in an era where the Saudi state wants to take over Newcastle (and Abu Dhabi already owns Man City), that the Premier League does not want sporting integrity. But to keep their structures afloat in the vain hope that the money keeps flowing from the broadcasters.

So rather than Project Restart, why not let’s go for Project Reset? Let’s not restart and let’s reset with some simple ground rules that may indeed provide a semblance of sporting integrity. These could include

• a wage cap which is affordable to maintain for all clubs
• 50% fan representation on all boards to ensure the game is returned to the fans
• a maximum ticket price for home and away games (20s plenty) to allow all fans to attend, with discounts for younger and older categories
• away allocations of up to 15% of ground capacity
• TV revenue to be evenly distributed not only within the Premier League but through the whole of the football pyramid
• TV matches to be agreed at least three months beforehand, allowing fans to make cheaper and more sustainable travel arrangements
• evening midweek fixtures to require a maximum of 100 miles travelling

This is no means a full list — John Nicholson has many more ideas here — but I would love to hear others ideas of how we can reset football, rather than restart it under the ludicrous facade of sporting integrity.