Football clubs’ good deeds go a long way but shutdown exposes financial faultlines | Paul Wilson

The game’s wealthier end is doing what it can in the coronavirus crisis but the precarious financial reality for too many lower-league clubs also plain to see

“What is football without a crowd?” Pep Guardiola asked a couple of weeks ago, just before it became plain that crowds of any kind now had to be avoided.

The short answer is not very much. Football has probably only just realised how much of its appeal lay in its ability to attract and entertain large numbers of people packed close together. Football stadiums are designed to accommodate crowds, to facilitate companionship; up and down the country those large edifices now standing empty and silent are powerful reminders that the human urge to congregate and commune is what has been suspended indefinitely.

Consider also the distinct lack of appetite for any sort of behind-closed-doors conclusion to the various loose ends of the season. No one is really going to do that, surely? It is hard to imagine anything more likely to demonstrate that football’s imperatives and emergencies are utterly disposable when set against the present difficulties in the real world. As an industry with crowd-pleasing as its raison d’etre, football is just going to have to wait until crowds can make a reappearance, however long that might take.

Related: ‘It’s horrible’: Halesowen halted with promotion and Wembley in sight

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