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Football clubs should be thinking very carefully about their next steps

Oliver Dowden writes that football clubs furloughing backroom staff should be thinking carefully about what they do next - REUTERS/Simon Dawson/REUTERS/Simon Dawson
Oliver Dowden writes that football clubs furloughing backroom staff should be thinking carefully about what they do next - REUTERS/Simon Dawson/REUTERS/Simon Dawson

We’re all missing the drama of sport right now, but this weekend we saw news on the back pages return for all the wrong reasons.

Given how central sport is to British life, it’s perhaps no surprise that its contribution to the coronavirus battle is under the microscope.

But the deadlock between the Professional Footballers Association and Premier League clubs on player wage cuts is deeply concerning, especially at a time when more clubs have announced they are furloughing many of their lowest paid staff.

Football clubs are, of course, businesses and so, like any other business, the extraordinary steps the Government has made to support the economy, through interventions like the Coronavirus Job Retention scheme, are there to support them in exceptional circumstances.

But football is also much more than a business. It is our national game, and individual clubs are rightly proud of the role they play as pillars of their local communities and their local economies.

Players and managers are able to reach people in ways politicians can only dream of. In times such as these, people will look to football for leadership and they have a right to expect it.

So clubs, players and owners should be thinking very carefully about their next steps.

Leaving the public purse to pick up the cost of furloughing low paid workers, whilst players earn millions and billionaire owners go untouched is something I know the public will rightly take a very dim view of.

At a time of national crisis, our national sport must play its part. I expect to see the football authorities judge the mood of the country and come together with an agreement urgently.

Liverpool are the latest Premier League club to furlough staff - Anfield Action Images via Reuters/Jason Cairnduff/Anfield Action Images via Reuters/Jason Cairnduff
Liverpool are the latest Premier League club to furlough staff - Anfield Action Images via Reuters/Jason Cairnduff/Anfield Action Images via Reuters/Jason Cairnduff

It’s especially important that a disagreement over players' wages doesn’t undermine all the good work that sport - including football - is doing to help the government’s efforts to tackle coronavirus.

I have the privilege of representing many brilliant industries, but sport was the first to knock on my door with a long list of offers to support the NHS, to help the most vulnerable in our country and keep families occupied and healthy at home.

Millions of us have benefited from individual sports men and women offering to do their bit.

Olympic champion Greg Rutherford and England footballers Rachel Daly and Millie Bright have shown us how to train like a champion at home, whilst Premier League stars like Harry Maguire and Trent Alexander-Arnold have helped the Government’s message about the importance of staying at home.

I know many sports people have made their own gestures too, such as Marcus Rashford’s work to raise money for children relying on free school meals.

And from the sports themselves, we’ve had offers to use stadiums as medical facilities at Wembley, Twickenham and the Etihad Stadium.

We’ve had elite training centres in Bath, Nottingham and the birthplace of the Paralympics - Stoke Mandeville - offered up to help the NHS and support adult social care.

And across the sporting world we have had offers to use their highly trained staff, their vehicles, their volunteer networks, their clubs communications - all to help the country. The list goes on and on.

Across Government we’re working quickly through these generous offers, to identify which are best to deploy and when, and will announce further details on this.

Many of these organisations are facing their own financial pressures, but they know that their fans and communities will want them to support the National Effort in whatever way they can.

Sport is vital to Britain’s sense of self. It will help us cope with the most difficult times and when, and only when, the time is right and it is safe to do so, the return of live sport will lift the nation like nothing else could.

And when we are through this and live sport brings us that joy once more, the sector should be able to look back knowing that it too played its part.