Has football lost the plot?

Has football lost the plot?

After everything that has now taken place, it is hard to imagine how it could possibly get any worse. But it has and we'd better believe it whether we like it or not. For well over a month the whole world has now reluctantly shut up shop, locked up the padlock, cried in a corner perhaps and accepted the status quo. This worldwide coronavirus lockdown will not be going away at any time in the immediate future and yet the glory, glory game of British football has chosen to bury its head in the sand in some delusional fantasy land that makes a mockery of everything that has come to pass so far in society as a whole.

This has to be the time for sound, rational thinking and sensible discussion but what on earth is possessing the English FA to even consider an imminent resumption of the Premier League season in a matter of weeks now? Is the FA living in some kind of weird parallel universe where nobody cares about anything or anyone anymore? Are we to believe that all at the very top of the FA hierarchy have finally lost the plot? How to explain this nagging obsession to finish the remaining matches of the Premier League when, quite clearly, there are far more important things to think about?

What English football really has to consider is its own conscience, that moral compass which really seems to pointing in some vague direction that none of us can really see at the moment. The facts, health warnings, repeated announcements to keep safe and the heartfelt pleas to kill off this wretched disease are turning into statements of the obvious. There has to be a painful acknowledgement that the season has to stop now with immediate effect. These are extenuating circumstances and nobody but nobody is to blame here.

 These are not the standard, commonsense warnings from well intentioned medical officers who just want us not to panic. They are the logical assessments and conclusions from governing bodies who simply want to restart the football season at the right time and the right place. But now surely is not that time. Almost 20,000 lives have now been horrendously lost, families are now grieving on a scale that can be barely imagined and football just wants to continue as if nothing had ever happened.

You are more inclined to think that this just smacks of complete desperation, football reaching out and grasping for anything that might help to soothe the aching sorrow. What we have on our hands is total ignorance, a shamefully inhumane disregard for the sanctity of human life, a disgraceful oversight of the real core issue here. Football, essentially, needs to get its house in order and re-calibrate its priorities. Football needs to remember quite obviously that it is, ultimately, a spectator sport and the very thought of making plans for the resumption of the season behind closed doors would be totally abhorrent and reprehensible.

Football, by its very nature, is designed to be played for the benefit of its fans, its devoted, hardcore supporters and to now deprive them of the natural enjoyment of watching their team in the flesh is, quite simply, unacceptable. Let us assume of course that Liverpool have now won the Premier League without playing another game? Will their fans really feel in the mood for a huge celebration on the Mersey docks or flooding the local streets as an open top bus winds its way through the city? It is utter madness.

There is a reluctant acceptance here that fate has now intervened and the curtain has to close on the Premier League season. Sadly, the decision will have to be taken out of the FA's hands and if they can only see the bigger picture then maybe our faith in football nature may be restored. We must hope that within the next couple of weeks that the footballing community, a very close knit and friendly body of people will come round to the only way it has to be.

There are arguments and counter arguments of course and for those of us who still enjoy the game and cherish all its varying moods, nuances and melodramas, this may be the right time for taking a deep breath and just allowing the season to close down until quite possibly the end of August or even early September. Of course the pill is a bitter one to swallow and the long term ramifications for a now permanent Premier League lockdown until further notice have to be taken into consideration.

So here's the plan of action. Scrap the promotion and relegation issues in both the Premier League, Championship and Leagues One or Two, promote the teams in the Championship as well as Leagues One and Two and award the Premier League trophy to Liverpool now and that has to suit everybody. Or will it?

The truth is that the money and greed that football seems to thrive on, has to be stamped out and firmly trodden on as football's only reason for existence. Of course all of the TV channels have poured huge amounts of expenditure into the game, commercialism and sponsorship are almost a vital piece of the game's furniture and background noise but football is a sport, a game for the masses and those millions of followers may now think of it as merely a petty irrelevance. Feelings are raw and emotions high. Football, for its own good, has to think and think very deeply.