Rotherham United are my football team – always have been, always will be. But, I do take an interest in the Premier League as well (hard not too when it’s practically shoved down your throat every five minutes) and enjoy watching games/highlights on TV although the Coronavirus has put paid to that at the moment.
We have no football in England at present and while teams are still in training there are other clubs that I don’t think are going to come through this lay-off with their finances intact.
I already see that National League side Barnet have placed their first team coaching staff, backroom staff, their Academy and other operational staff at their club on notice and I think there could be more to follow.
In a meeting on Tuesday the League One and Two clubs said they are looking at a combined loss of around £50 million with former Football Manager Brian Laws suggesting that ever Premier League Player could easily donate a months wages to help out our lower league clubs.
We’ve (well, I’ve) been saying for a while that it would be ‘nice’ if each Premier League player adopted a lower league player and helped out when they could. Or a Premier League club to help lower league clubs – for instance couldn’t one of the Manchester sides have helped Bury get through this season?
But will any of this happen? And, is it right for us to ask people to give up their wages to help others?
We all hear how much our top stars in football earn though not how much of this money is already spoken for, what charities they give to, who they have back home to help out, how much is in their pension pots because, don’t forget, footballing careers can end at the kick of a ball or kick of a shin.
On the other hand would we ask, for instance, a manager in industry to help one of his lower paid colleagues if they should go off ill with no wages for a long time?
Me, I’d love to see monies filtered down the football leagues wherever it comes from – but will it happen? What do you think?
