So long football, it was nice knowing you!
Never has the divide between football and its fans been greater than right now. When the players take the field in front of empty stands on June 17, the visuals alone will be a stark representation of how far removed football is from supporters - and the fact that football is perfectly content to proceed without match going supporters is perfectly consistent with how that divide has grown so substantially over the last few decades.
Proceeding with games in the absence of fans barely five minutes after the peak of a global pandemic has passed is simply a manifestation of a much bigger issue that like this pandemic isn’t going anywhere soon while the Premier League are pulling the strings.
Earlier this season when the Premier League introduced VAR they steadfastly refused to offer supporters inside the stadium a view of the incident on screens and in turn a justification for the ruling, leaving those inside the stadium utterly clueless as to why the decision made by the official on the pitch had been overturned aside from a brief message splashed on a screen - and that, often after the game had already long resumed. Unlike the viewers watching at home.
Match going supporters have been the least important factor when games have been rearranged for the purposes of television, often leaving those who follow their team up and down the country to make the most ridiculous of journeys - fans forced to leave the house before dawn has broken or arrive back home long after sun has set. What was important was that the kick off was on schedule for prime time viewing, that’s the priority.
Football isn’t for the fans inside the stadium anymore. It’s for the couch potato watching wall to wall coverage on their screen at home, absorbing the commercials and delivering the viewers who guarantee their greater and greater influence. And that’s why Premier League football is back so soon.
In the eyes of those running football, the match going fan is no longer a supporter but a customer and like many businesses, the Premier League’s attitude is that you can take it or leave it - they don’t care whether you are there or not. How long you’ve been supporting your club. The bond or the history between you and your team. That’s irrelevant.
The biggest irony of the fact that football is being rushed back into the spotlight it craves is that countless sports with far less social interaction aren’t - including Wimbledon who as the outbreak began were pressed, along with other major events, to “do the right thing” and cancel. Needless to say, Wimbledon won’t be resuming in July, a month after the Premier League has resumed and on the verge of concluding its season by that stage.
What should football have done as we emerged from the global pandemic? They should have given LFC and the other division leading clubs their titles, promoted the clubs from the divisions below that occupied the positions that qualify for automatic promotion and cancelled relegation throughout. Apart from those who were within reach of promotion, few would have had much grounds for complaint in the circumstances.
The desperation to deliver a ‘product’ - anything - for the demanding broadcasters and their desperate audiences will instead do long lasting damage to the relationship many match attending fans have with the game and leave a bitter taste in their mouth. Meanwhile as a spectacle it will be enough to make an episode of ‘Deal or No Deal’ seem interesting. Rather than spending millions testing a thousand Premier League players twice a week, that money could have been passed to the lower league clubs that are facing financial ruin to ensure their longer term survival, where as little as a few thousand pounds could potentially make all the difference.
This isn’t about ‘integrity’. That was gone as soon as it was proposed that some games could be played at neutral venues, but not all of them. And integrity will be shot when clubs whose season is finished with nothing left to play for start playing their kids simply to protect their most important assets.
Instead, we face the likelihood that the next round of television negotiations will deliver broadcasters a long sought after 3pm window for live games on a Saturday afternoon, the one remaining firewall protecting the lower divisions against the complete dominance of the Premier League.
How many lower league clubs will still exist by the time next season kicks off remains to be seen. How much further the Premier League chooses to alienate the match going fan grows more likely by the week.