The Corona Era Part 2: Money and the Men who hold it

Jen Kelly – a.k.a. Cheshire’s Revenge / The Word Nerd – brings ilovemacc her own take on the highs and lows of The Silkmen

So, I have a confession to make. I don’t miss football. 

Alright, alright, keep your home-dyed and badly cut hair on. Let me explain. When football first fell foul of the New World Order that we now call normal, I was genuinely gutted. I couldn’t believe that the one staple that has been there throughout my entire 36 years was being taken away. Of course, as the pandemic gained speed it became painfully, terrifyingly clear that the cancellation of football was genuinely the least of our worries. A week later I was furloughed with immediate effect and so, for the past 2 weeks I’ve been busying myself with inside projects that I’ve been avoiding for the past few years. It’s been alright if I’m honest, and I’ve adjusted pretty well to life without the beautiful game.

Your love is like bad medicine…

I’ve come to realise that football, and the undying commitment of a ‘True Fan’ is like a bad relationship. You want to get away, you know you should just leave, but then you go back just one last time because this time it might be different. You might be able to recreate that wonderful, intoxicating feeling that you felt when you first fell for the love of your life. Always chasing past glory, never standing back and looking at your unhealthy relationship in the cold light of day. But that’s what we’ve been forced to do and, quite frankly, I’m disgusted with what I can see.

As it stands, it’s been 24 days since a ball was kicked by an English club. A lot has happened in the world since then, things that will be etched into all of our memories until the day we die. And during that time, the power players of the English game have been working night and day to try and help wherever they can…..oh, wait, that’s a load of shit isn’t it? It appears what the PFA and Premier League have actually been doing is to try and position our ridiculously rich professional footballers, and the clubs who employ them, as a group of society that we should have some sympathy for. Seriously.

Now don’t get me wrong, they are most definitely not the only sector of society who need to take a look in the mirror. As Gary Lineker rightly points out, why not call on ALL the wealthy to try and help? I’ve not seen much in the news about bankers, CEOs and MPs taking a cut, have you? But Gary, love, you had me fully on board until you used the phrase “pick on footballers”, like asking them to sacrifice some of their humongous wages was somehow bullying those poor ‘ickle bastards. But it’s not the players I’m really mad as, and it’s not the players who have really made me question the whole world of professional football. It’s the system itself.

There are a few Premier League clubs who have furloughed their non-playing staff, taking advantage of the Government scheme to pay 80% of the wages. But there are others who have simply laid them off, which feels completely unfair when the players are still getting paid for doing diddley-squat. There are individual clubs who have opted to take pay cuts, with Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe and Brighton Head Coach (and ex-Silkman) Graham Potter leading the way. And this all just proves what we all knew all along. The governing bodies in today’s game have zero control, or say, in what actually happens. The leadership is non-existent and it explains why when it comes to something like this, the powers that be are simply unable to implement anything on their charges. It also proves that a football club, as a business model, is fundamentally flawed if there is no money in the pot to deal with a crisis.

You do the (massive) maths…

The latest reasoning, if you can call it that, is that there would be a £500m loss in wages over 12 months if all PL players took a 30% pay cut. Just let that sink in for a minute. £500 million. With 20 teams in the Premier League and a max of 25 player a squad, that equates to each player losing £1million a year. And that’s just 30% of their wage. Poor ‘ickle footballers, right? Of course, they don’t pocket all that money. A large proportion is swept up in taxes and the like, so the PFAs crotch shot is that there would be a knock-on effect on the NHS with the reduction in tax. And as we know, using the NHS as a guilt trip on the nation is a tried and tested pmethod to quash the baying masses into submission. Just ask Boris and Nigel.

You know the world really has gone insane when you find yourself agreeing with Wayne Rooney. In an article for the Sunday Times today, Wayne made the fair comment that the players are now in a no-win situation. In all seriousness footballers, just like the rest of us, live to their means. And suddenly losing almost a third of your income has the very real potential to financially cripple even the most astute of us overnight. And that’s without considering the loss of various playing bonuses and sponsorship packages the players have already seen disappear. 

So why has all this caused me to lose my footballing mojo? Well, we’ve now got football politics without a ball being kicked. And none of us got into football to cheer on the politics, did we? Without the actual game itself football has been exposed for what it really is; an unfair hierarchy based on money, and who has the most of it. And who is it that really pulls the puppet strings? Why, it’s the TV channels, of course.

As part of the negotiations this weekend the Premier League “warned that it faces a £762m financial penalty if the season does not resume, and broadcasters demanded refunds on games they could not show.” Because that’s the truth of the matter. Money talks and in football the main source of money is from those media fat cats who throw wads of money at the game and demand us all to dance for them, season after season. And dance we do, with our Sky Sports packages and Amazon Prime subscriptions. The Premier League is seemingly terrified that the pot will run dry and they’ll be left dancing in the dark, on their own, with the death knell tolling in the distance. Richard Scudamore has a lot to answer for. 

Pick up the crumbs, Macc…

And where does all this leave little old Macclesfield Town? There is talk of a £125m advance for the EFL and National League from the Premier League. Assuming that includes the 4 leagues from the Championship downwards, that’s just over £1.3million each if the pot was shared out equally. A lot of money to the likes of me and you, sure, but for the average football club it wouldn’t go very far at all. And that’s if it even reaches the football club in the first place. If that money follows the same route as other payments down the pyramid, it’ll surely wind up in our owners pocket, for him to distribute as he sees fit. So that’s comforting then….

It looks like it’ll be a good while before football, and life as we once knew it, will resume. And who knows what we’ll be left with at the end of it all. But perhaps it’s not all doom and impending gloom. If nothing else, this monumental crisis has perhaps shown us what true community looks like, and how many truly good people there are in the world. I know at the end of it all, I’ll welcome back the community at MTFC with open arms. The fat cat in charge? Not so much.

Stay safe Silkmen and women.

#againstallodds https://thewordnerd.home.blog/

“The Word Nerd: For everything you wanted to know about MTFC, and some things you didn’t…”