Matt Maher: Lower league clubs sit on a financial time bomb

There is no shortage of ideas. Everyone, it seems, has an idea.

Right at this moment the general consensus is sometime in June remains the earliest possible date for a resumption. But like everything else in these unprecedented times, it is no more than educated guesswork.

Premier League clubs will again go through the many and varied proposals for completing the season when they hold their latest teleconference call tomorrow, yet the chances of finding a solid solution remain slim to none when no-one, anywhere, can say for certain how the next few weeks will pan out.

There are some who find even discussing a return during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic distasteful. It goes without saying sport is hardly of any great importance right now.

But then football is no different to any other business in its need to plan for the future. There is too much at stake, financially, for talks not to take place.

What seems increasingly inevitable is that even when football does resume, it will look very different to how we remember it.

Matches might well restart in June, yet it will probably be several months later when supporters are allowed back in to watch them.

It’s not an ideal scenario but frankly, no such thing exists. Certainly not if the Premier League wants to have any chance of completing the campaign and avoiding the £1.1billion losses of which its chief executive, Richard Masters, has warned.

There has been plenty of talk of the need to protect the integrity of the competition. Playing the final quarter of the campaign with no fans in attendance does not help in that respect, yet in a crisis the plan which makes the most financial sense must always take precedence.

Even so, it needs pointing out playing matches behind closed doors is not so straightforward as simply keeping the turnstiles locked.

In Germany, where the Bundesliga is hoping to return next month, it is estimated there will still need to be 240 people involved per match (including players, backroom staff, officials, media and TV production crews) to ensure everything runs smoothly. They will all be tested for coronavirus every three days.

Testing, as we know, is not something the UK has been particularly strong on. Resources are currently needed in far more important areas than football. Of course, behind closed doors matches would also require medics to be in attendance. Clearly, you do not have to go too far before the size of the logistical headache, even without fans, becomes clear.

The other, arguably larger, issue with behind closed doors matches is that, while it might help the Premier League satisfy its broadcasting contracts, it doesn’t do much to help those clubs further down the pyramid for whom the financial impact of the shutdown is already beginning to feel very real.

Keeping fans out of the ground is OK for clubs whose matchday ticket sales account for only a tiny percentage of their revenues. But what will be the incentive for clubs in Leagues One or Two, where gate receipts are a far larger source of income, to play matches in July and August when there will be nothing for them to gain financially?

Until this point the Premier League, EFL and National League have been able to maintain the semblance of a united front when it comes to addressing the biggest peacetime crisis football has faced. Yet the more time passes without finding a long-term solution for those clubs under the greatest financial pressure, the more likely cracks will appear.

The measures which have been put in place so far, including the Premier League advancing funds of £125million to the lower divisions, are merely delaying tactics. What happens when clubs have burned through money they would otherwise have received several months from now is yet to be explained.

“All we have done so far is kick the can a bit further down the road,” explained one club director earlier this week, while Tranmere chairman Mark Palios believes this week alone may be critical for the ‘survival’ of many of the EFL’s 71 clubs.

“The crisis facing us should not be underestimated,” he wrote in The Telegraph. “When Bury FC collapsed, its community was devastated and there were lots of platitudes about ensuring that it never happened again.

“But it is about to happen again and many times over, unless we change the way we are handling this, and change it urgently.”

Despite the EFL and PFA reaching an agreement over a 25 per cent wage deferral for League One and Two players, Palios believes some clubs will struggle to pay the wage bill for April.

Several National League clubs were, meanwhile, left aghast at a surprise statement from the league board expressing ‘gratitude’ to the Premier League for the advancing of £2m in solidarity payments. Clubs in the North and South divisions will receive just £13,000 each which, while better than nothing, won’t stretch far.

A pertinent question might be just who is going to be able to help? Premier League clubs, for instance, might argue they have problems of their own to address. The richest men in the sport remain the Premier League players yet many are locked in conversations over helping out their own clubs, while continuing to focus – quite reasonably – on making charitable donations.

While circumstances make proposals for football’s return hypothetical, plans for averting a financial nightmare need to be very real. All evidence suggests they will be needed very quickly too.