It’s the money men who want games played behind closed doors and any restart would be both artificial and riskyWord must have somehow reached Uefa that people are suffering in the present crisis, with the return of competitive football not really their highest priority, since the governing body’s latest edict not only showed uncharacteristic humility but revealed an unexpected shift towards common sense.Of course leagues around Europe should not be penalised for scrapping the present, wrecked, season without playing any more games. Of all the solutions being suggested over the past few weeks this is the obvious one and the easiest to put into practice. Related: Premier League completion 'probably not realistic', says Dutch FA president Related: Premier League return...
The coronavirus crisis has instilled a spirit of unity among football’s leaders – but the sport’s calendar has been shreddedAs Gareth Southgate put it so eloquently, this is hardly the moment for football to take centre stage. Yet after a week in which almost all of the sport’s global calendar was suspended amid the growing coronavirus pandemic, England’s manager can be forgiven for wondering if what Pelé described as the “beautiful game” will ever recover from this crisis.Thursday’s joint announcement by the Football Association, the Premier League and the EFL that the provisional date of the first weekend in April for the resumption of men’s and women’s professional football had been pushed back almost a month until “no earlier than...
As the coronavirus crisis deepened this week, it was heartening to see Uefa, Fifa and others show some leadershipCoronavirus – latest updates | See all our coronavirus coverageIn normal times, last experienced in Britain only a week ago, it might have been fanciful to imagine that in some unprecedented global crisis football’s squabbling and often self-seeking administrators would step up and behave like leaders.Of course, faced with an unthinkable pandemic they have had little other choice than to put their sport immediately on hold but as they did so it was almost weird to see them striking the right tone. Related: Premier League, EFL and WSL football will not restart before 30 April Related: Mikel John Obi: 'Players were scared....
Uefa’s desire to encourage long‑term investment instead of relying on increasing debt is workingIn the days after Manchester City were found to have seriously breached Uefa’s financial fair play rules by overstating their sponsorships from Abu Dhabi companies, some of the ensuing discussion rapidly diverted from that guilty finding to questioning the merits of FFP itself. Approved by Uefa in the 2009 season after years of wondering how to drag European football from overspending on players’ wages, FFP has since transformed top division clubs’ finances overall, and was introduced by the Premier League in 2013.City’s impatient ambitions after the great fortune of the 2008 takeover by Sheikh Mansour of the Abu Dhabi ruling family were based on him bankrolling mega-spending,...
While news of Uefa’s sanctions on Bulgaria was breaking, Haringey were facing Yeovil in take-two of an FA Cup tie in which racism caused a player walk-offThe English reaction to Uefa sanctions for racist incidents is now so predictable as to be almost comforting: general, immediate scorn, and another airing for Nicklas Bendtner’s boxer shorts. The deluge began this time within seconds of Uefa announcing its disciplinary committee’s verdict on the shocking abuse from a section of Bulgaria’s supporters, targeted at England’s black players during the European Championship qualifying match on 14 October.The sanction – a full stadium closure for Bulgaria’s next international match, a second full closure suspended for two probationary years, and a €75,000 (£64,800) fine – is...