The scheme is there to be used, as the chancellor has said, so why have Tory MPs attacked clubs?After a week of vitriolic criticism levelled at football clubs for using the government’s job retention scheme to put some employees on furlough during the Covid-19 crisis, on Wednesday some balance was finally applied. Considering that the culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, had warned some Premier League clubs the scheme was not for them, and his fellow Conservative MP Julian Knight accused clubs of operating in a “moral vacuum” by furloughing staff while still paying players, the source of the measured response was perhaps unlikely: their own chancellor, Rishi Sunak.He was asked at the government’s Covid-19 press conference about reports that British companies...
Where do you draw the furlough line? Who should take cuts? The game, like society, is struggling for answersThere are two parallel worlds right now. The first is those in the heart of this crisis. The Prime Minister fighting for his life. The heroic out-of-retirement doctors going back and not returning. The underpaid nurses leaving behind families. The care workers, the bus drivers, the victims – those final breaths surrounded by ventilator machines and masks instead of wives, husbands and children. The news. The three lecterns, the Skyping journalists, the sheer numbers lost – they start to become almost meaningless when they get so high.The second world is the rest of us. The lucky ones. Untouched directly – so far....
Matt Hancock is merely the latest patsy to offend a game that was dysfunctional even when it was awash with moneyI don’t expect to make too many friends saying this, but perhaps it’s time we all gave Matt Hancock a break. Isn’t it typical how, as soon as things take a turn for the worse, everyone starts singling out the health secretary?Yes, clearly he could be doing more to deflect our attention from the failings of his dangerously shambolic government and the chronic underfunding of the National Health Service. And he wants to do more, too. Related: World Cup France 98 final and the riddle of Ronaldo – Football Weekly If you were trying to design a system hostile to solidarity,...
Scrambling politicians, cut-throat club execs and an unobliging union have left Premier League players facing familiar ireA political football is normally the cliche of choice when something that has nothing to do with football is booted back and forth between agencies attempting to deflect blame. These are far from normal times, however, and in the past week football became political even though its practitioners are now self-isolating and invisible. Season suspended or not, Premier League players rounded on by a health secretary struggling to equip his own nurses know exactly how it feels to get a public kicking.There are, of course, wealthier institutions around the country than football clubs, and many millionaires and corporations that pay less tax. But even...
Belts are being tightened across the UK, but it should not be the taxpayer that picks up the bill for a gold-laced leagueUnder the shadow of coronavirus, new rules are being made and unmade. Things that were unknown and alien a week ago are now, increasingly, part of our daily lives. But some things do not need explaining. They remain instinctual; they feel right, or plain wrong. And the issue of Premier League clubs furloughing their staff is one of them. Related: Football clubs' good deeds go a long way but shutdown exposes financial faultlines | Paul Wilson Related: Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe takes 'significant voluntary' pay cut Continue reading...