Postscript: The End of Football, or: Football in the Time of Corona
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Postscript: The End of Football, or: Football in the Time of Corona On Friday, 13 March 2020 the PL and FL as well as the DFL and DFB interrupted the ongoing season in their respective competitions. The esca- lating Covid-19 crisis forced Europe’s national governing football bodies to hit the pause button. The French association announced its own deci- sion to do so on that day as well. After the leagues in Spain and Italy had called a halt a few days before, live football—medially the most ubiq- uitous popular cultural phenomenon on the continent—had suddenly stopped. For the first time since WWII, European league competition was suspended. What follows is a rather essayistic account of my thoughts on football during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and might not necessarily meet the standards of academic scrutiny. Given its topicality and the tremen- dous effect this crisis has had on football, this seems to be the right way to go forward at this point, in the knowledge that some of the statements I make here might already prove to be incorrect next week. I also apol- ogise in advance for the slightly cynical undertone here and there, but what has unfolded in terms of football with the pandemic hitting Europe was both unexpected and unbelievable in many regards and still leaves me speechless here and there. I expect this extreme case of an external shock to make the multiple schisms that exist within football—and anywhere else—even more visible and test the resilience of the system as such. I will try to go about this in a way similar to how I have structured the © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive 289 license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0
290 POSTSCRIPT: THE END OF FOOTBALL, OR: FOOTBALL … book, meaning to recount the ongoing processes in the top sphere of football, describe its repercussions on the actual object of study—lower league football—and consider the effects on the specific clubs in the case studies. Finally, I will apply what I learned in the field during the years I have kept myself occupied with football to make some predictions on what might be forthcoming. This account will be as balanced as possible, but I am closer to the German case by mere geographical vicinity, so this will be presented here in more detail. When after weeks of no live football, German league play resumed, nobody even pretended that this was about the sport and the need to conclude an ongoing competition in a fair manner. Any attempts to hide the true intention of the relaunch as anything other than an attempt to meet the contractual requirements to obtain the last instalment of TV money for the ongoing season had been abandoned. The relaunch itself then was carefully prepared. While football never really left the news head- lines during the weeks of restrictions on public life, officials repeatedly stated that while the situation for football was indeed dire, there were of course more pressing matters requiring attention; there were more impor- tant things than football, after all. After a hygiene concept for a relaunch without a stadium audience and including a strict code of conduct for players was drafted, state interior ministers sanctioned it as viable. This was the political backing required to present the national government with the plans. On 6 May, German chancellor Angela Merkel allowed the season to continue. The whole decision-making process was accom- panied by voices from the media which argued for a sign for a return to normalcy as represented by the commencement of the football season; as a bit of distraction for the weary German soul. With nine match days to go and excluding live audiences from the stadium, football in the first and second Bundesliga resumed on 16 May. The 3. Liga resumed on 30 May with eleven match days to go. For a few weeks in May and June and much to the delight of officials, German football lead the world foot- ball market since other leagues, including the English league, were far from relaunching. Schedules were extremely tight, with two games a week until the season was due to be finished by the end June/early July. The German cup semi-finals were also scheduled in this period. In England, football resumed on 17 June, almost precisely a month after the German top leagues resumed play on similar terms.1 The Championship continued its season on 20 June, with League 1 and 2 voting to end the season by
POSTSCRIPT: THE END OF FOOTBALL, OR: FOOTBALL … 291 determining the final league table on a points-per-game—PPG—basis and only play the play-off matches. The mode in which football was continued was nothing short of a trav- esty of ‘the beautiful game’. Perhaps the significance of the supporters in the creation of the cultural good that is a football match has now become clear once and for all, and perhaps this is also part of the answer to the question of why they still call it ‘the people’s game’. Because in the end, it is the people around the pitch that create the spectacle, who comment on every move on the pitch and create atmosphere where otherwise there is just the hollow thump of a ball being kicked around and the occa- sional shout from the sideline. This way of playing and presenting the game has truly ripped the heart and soul out of football. The German word Geisterspiel to denote matches behind closed doors resonates the eerie atmosphere in the empty stadiums. While every decent training pitch would suffice for playing these matches and might make the lack of a crowd less apparent—and, moreover, save a lot of costs—the clubs for some reason still use their gigantic, empty stadiums. In both countries in the leagues below, the third tier clubs voted in favour of a termination of the season and to determine the final league standings on a PPG basis. There is no reason—except TV revenue—that this should not have worked for the top leagues as well. In fact, one might argue that out of all the possibilities for ending the season, the calcula- tion on a PPG basis is perhaps the least unfair, especially regarding the competitive fairness on a European football level. There exist all sorts of issues arising from the unilateral decision-making with regard to resuming national league competitions. The break in playing practice might be a crucial factor once UEFA resumes its competitions in the CL and EL over the summer. Differing regulations regarding promotion and relega- tion might cause a wave of lawsuits which could spill over to the European level if clubs feel they might have been defrauded of a lucrative CL starting position. The time of growth seems over for now, as the most recent selling of PL rights has already indicated. The untimely sale by auction of the German national TV rights for the seasons 2021/2022 to 2024/2025 was delayed by a month. Still, the price finally agreed upon fell short of the envisaged increase from e4.64 to e5.2b n made earlier in the year (Kicker 2020c). With some e240m less in TV revenue and the first decrease in twelve years, a more balanced distribution down the leagues becomes even more unlikely. In England, the BBC reported a loss of
292 POSTSCRIPT: THE END OF FOOTBALL, OR: FOOTBALL … £340m per club for the current season even it being continued behind closed doors (Roan et al. 2020). In Germany, too, the TV money for the 2020/2021 season has already been reduced from e1.35bn to e1.2 bn due to a fallout of payments from various DFL contractors, among them Eurosport (Kicker 2020a). The systemic mid- to long-term repercussions are even harder to foresee. How widespread rebates for sponsors and TV broadcasters will be treated is hard to say at the moment but will surely have a significant impact on the clubs; newly negotiated contracts might raise much less in actual revenue. Still, my best estimate is that clubs at the top will largely be spared any significant losses, they are simply too big to fail. While the financial severity of the situation in the top two leagues in Germany has been talked up quite a bit—perhaps in order to raise pressure for a continuation of league competition—I doubt whether there would have been actual cases of insolvency, especially of clubs in the first Bundesliga. The numbers presented in this study speak for themselves: no first tier club in Germany has ever filed for administration, while England has only had one—see Chapter “Economic Crisis: Number Games”. Even if some risk financial trouble, private and public sponsors and investors will help to get them through. Thus, while the e380m instalment of TV money is surely needed to stabilize the situation at individual clubs, the top clubs were never the ones in real trouble in the first place. This assessment changes dramatically when looking at the situation in the leagues below. As opposed to the clubs at the very top, gate and match-day revenues contribute much more to financing lower league clubs, as this study has also shown. Since playing in front of a crowd was out of the question and TV money was not a significant issue, clubs in most leagues below the second tier voted to suspend the season to keep expenditures as low as possible. The German 3. Liga is an exception in this regard—and the restart of the season against the will of a significant number of clubs is likely to have dire consequences (MDR 2020a). On 17 June 1. FC Kaiserslautern was the first team from this league to file for administration with FSV Zwickau on the verge of doing so. In both cases it is evident that the Covid-19 crisis was not the only reason for this step, but it certainly sped up an inevitable process. The DFL and DFB knew what to expect from their clubs and announced early on that clubs filing for administration this season would not suffer the obligatory nine-point deduction (Ruf 2020). In any case, far-reaching fallout for clubs from the third tier down is certainly to be expected in the months to come.
POSTSCRIPT: THE END OF FOOTBALL, OR: FOOTBALL … 293 It cannot be foreseen how the clubs will react and whether those who feel disadvantaged by their respective governing bodies’ decisions will quietly accept their fate. It is not unlikely that some clubs will seek compensation in one form or another; a long list of lawsuits in this regard is not an unrealistic scenario. The case of the German second Bundesliga side Dynamo Dresden is exemplary. The team had two players test positive for Covid-19 shortly before the restart of the season, which meant that the whole team had to remain in quarantine for fourteen days (Wilson 2020). While plans for the relaunch were not interrupted by the incident—or other such occurrences such as violations of the hygiene rules at other clubs—Dynamo started late into the remainder of the season on an even tighter schedule than the other teams while trying to fend off relegation on the basis of a significant team training deficit of two weeks. The clubs dealt with in this study—and I will only include the ETFCs in the following—are affected by this gap in different ways. Of the English teams, MTFC have secured a place in League Two and finished in posi- tion twenty-one of the league table. On the other hand, CFFC have barely managed to stay in the National League, finishing nineteenth, only two positions short of relegation and only two points more than the first relegated team. While salaries where paid in full in March, the players and staff have accepted a twenty per cent reduction in wages and have been furloughed (Reid 2020). In Germany’s Regionalliga West, RWE had a chance at promotion this season when the table’s current leader, SV Rödinghausen, announced that they would not apply to start in level three, even if they won the championship. This means that the second- placed team would enter the play-off, a position RWE—as the team ranked third at the time of suspension—might have reached if the season had continued uninterrupted. This was why RWE was the only team to vote against a termination of the season: a PPG decision would not help them. That said, the team in second place, SC Verl, was unsuccessful in its first application for a licence for the third tier since its stadium does not meet the minimum requirements (Wozniak 2020). It is, however, likely that Verl will gain a licence in a second application. In any case, they have been declared the team to play the play-off against the champion of the Regionalliga Nordost. In this league, LOK was declared champion after the final league standings were determined by a PPG calculation. VSG Altglienicke, the team in first position and Energie Cottbus, ranked third, opposed the PPG solution. Altglienicke proposed a championship final
294 POSTSCRIPT: THE END OF FOOTBALL, OR: FOOTBALL … against LOK, while Cottbus wanted a play-off solution (MDR 2020b). The regional football association NOFV decided in early June for PPG. Thus, LOK might look at promotion to the third tier by the official end of the season and, in a slightly different scenario, might have faced RWE in the play-offs. Generally, it is noteworthy that PPG-decisions will have much more severe effects in the German lower leagues as the schedules are more irregular than in England. Whereas in England games played differ by a maximum of one—League Two—or two—League One, National League—games respectively, in Germany, the difference is up to four games in the Regionalliga West and Nordost. Furthermore, structurally, it will be challenging to manage the competitions from the lower league levels up to the European level and manage promotions, relegations and starting positions in the competitions fairly. Structural changes are also being discussed: there are plans to create a two-division third tier in Germany next season. One tier below, the Regionalliga Nord will defi- nitely be split into two divisions and together field four more teams than currently (Kicker 2020b). In Germany, the relaunch requests were accompanied by solemn oaths that the sport would be reformed and provide its clubs a financially more sustainable basis. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Christian Seifert, CEO of the DFL said that it was ‘not easy to have a discussion on negative developments in a system which has been so successful in recent years’ and that it ‘perhaps took a real crisis to come to a halt and to introspect’ (cited in Horeni 2020, my trans- lation). He also announced a task force on the future of football and the possibility of salary caps on players’ wages (ibid.). By the time of the interview, it had become clear that—unexpectedly—the public backing for a resuming of league play was limited. According to a Yougov poll, only thirty-four per cent wanted to see a restart behind closed doors, while forty-six per cent were opposed to continuing the season at all (Schneider 2020). The organised fan scene also criticised the DFL’s course in the crisis in no uncertain terms, calling a return to play an ‘unadulterated mockery towards the rest of society’, there should be no ‘Lex Bundesliga’ (Fanszenen Deutschlands, cited. in Faszination Fankurve 2020, my translation). The communique also called for greater solidarity and a distribution of TV revenues down the leagues. Both the opposition of the fans to the relaunch as well as the well-known tendency of supporters to show up in front of stadiums despite a match being
POSTSCRIPT: THE END OF FOOTBALL, OR: FOOTBALL … 295 played behind closed doors, sparked fears that larger crowds might gather in front of stadiums in order to purposely violate the hygiene concept and force a termination of matches. Britain’s sport minister Nigel Huddle- ston said that these gatherings would ‘threaten football’s culture’ (cited in Ingle 2020). It is reassuring to hear that playing a total of ninety-two PL matches behind closed doors and limiting the contact between players on and off the field poses no such threat. As mentioned, this current crisis has made the prevalent, severe fragility of the system as outlined in this volume all too clear. A few days or weeks in which business is not as usual and the first major cracks appear. Although this is true for the top, it is all the more true for the lower levels where—as this study has shown—club finances are especially imbalanced with regard to the amount of the budget swallowed up by player wages. No business can be kept afloat on such a basis if the only continuous income stream ceases to bring in fresh money. Many fans want to see the current crisis as the herald of a long overdue, impending end of football as we know it and as a chance for fundamental renewal. I am sceptical. I believe that an outcome where the system as such returns to old habits once the current shock is over is much more likely. The system would have to truly renew itself from bottom up, if major changes are to be expected. A wide-reaching collapse of clubs throughout the leagues—the top ones included—could bring about such revolutionary change. However, I do not see a fallout on such a scale is imminent at the top. In the past weeks, football once more fell short of showing true solidarity, the topflight still exists in and for itself alone. The abandoned plans of Liverpool FC to follow the examples of Newcastle United and Tottenham to put staff on furlough on the basis of the UK government’s job retention scheme speaks for itself (Hunter 2020). The vast majority of players did not accept actual cuts to their salaries in support of ‘their’ clubs. In England at least, clubs managed to reach agreements with their players on wage deferrals. To my knowledge, a meaningful discussion on a fairer—or more solidary—redistribution of TV money has not taken place, neither in England nor Germany. Despite all the calls for and claims of solidarity and of football as community, it seems to be pretty much every man for himself. It is a strong display of the ties between football, politics and economy in Germany and England that the top leagues were able to continue their competitions when the top leagues of other sports could not. Moreover, the special status football enjoys becomes apparent as top football can
296 POSTSCRIPT: THE END OF FOOTBALL, OR: FOOTBALL … now claim to be officially ‘system-relevant’, as it was allowed to continue its business at a time when only sectors attributed such status were kept running. It will remain to be seen what changes this current crisis will bring about to this relationship and the system itself. Lower league foot- ball, as the study has shown, has already faced a number of crises. This further challenge—for now—only makes these more apparent. There is still a beauty to the game itself, but I see little beauty in the conditions in which it is currently played. Whether this crisis heralds the end of football as we know it remains to be seen; it certainly meant a pause and thus, for once, a time to think on it. Note 1. In Spain, La Liga and La Liga 2 had already resumed play on the weekend of 10–12 June. In Italy, Seria A and B relaunched on 20 June. References Faszination Fankurve. (2020, April 16). Fanszenen Deutschland: ‘Geisterspiele sind keine Lösung’. Faszination Fankurve. https://www.faszination-fan kurve.de/index.php?head=Geisterspiele-sind-keine-Loesung&folder=sites& site=news_detail&news_id=21677. Horeni, M. (2020, April 28). DFL-Chef Seifert im Interview: ‘Es muss möglich sein, Gehälter von Spielern zu deckeln’. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. https://www.faz.net/-gtn-9yx4z. Hunter, A. (2020, April 6). Liverpool Reverse Decision to Furlough Staff After Fierce Criticism. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/ 2020/apr/06/liverpool-reverse-decision-to-furlough-staff-after-fierce-critic ism-coronavirus. Ingle, S. (2020, June 16). Government Warns of Neutral Grounds in Premier League If Fans Go to Matches. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian. com/football/2020/jun/16/government-warns-of-neutral-grounds-in-pre mier-league-if-fans-go-to-matches. Kicker. (2020a, June 21). Sky bleibt wichtigster DFL-Partner - Samstagabend- Spiele der 2. Liga im Free-TV. https://www.kicker.de/778014/artikel. Kicker. (2020b, June 17). Regionalliga Nord plant Aufteilung in zwei Staffeln. Kicker. https://www.kicker.de/777717/artikel/. Kicker. (2020c, January 13). Neuer TV-Vertrag: Die Bundesliga braucht 5,2 Milliarden Euro. Kicker. https://www.kicker.de/767041/artikel. MDR. (2020a, April 13). 3. Liga tief zerstritten—Sollen Vereine in die Insolvenz gezwungen werden? MDR. https://www.mdr.de/sport/fussball_3l/grosser-
POSTSCRIPT: THE END OF FOOTBALL, OR: FOOTBALL … 297 streit-in-der-dritten-liga-sollen-vereine-in-die-insolvenz-gertrieben-werden- 100.html. MDR. (2020b, June 5). NOFV: Tag der Entscheidung für die Regionalliga Nordost. MDR. https://www.mdr.de/sport/fussball_rl/regionalliga-nofv-ent scheidung-100.html. Reid, N. (2020, April 7). Chesterfield FC Puts All Players and Staff on Furlough Due to Coronavirus. Derby Telegraph. https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/ news/local-news/chesterfield-fc-puts-players-furlough-4027337. Roan, D., Stone, S., & Scott, L. (2020, May 11). Premier League Clubs Facing £340m TV Refund Even If Season Resumes. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/ sport/football/52579299. Ruf, C. (2020, 17 June). 1. FC Kaiserslautern in der Insolvenz: Goldener Rettungsring. Der Spiegel. https://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/1-fc-kaiser slautern-beantragt-in-der-3-liga-insolvenz-pfaelzer-sauplan-a-69b7ee5a-5cc8- 4f8c-9f67-c5f455a3ec9f. Schneider, P. (2020, May 11). Zu früh oder überfällig? Wie die Deutschen zur Fortsetzung der Bundesliga stehen. YouGov. https://yougov.de/news/2020/ 05/11/zu-fruh-oder-uberfallig-wie-die-deutschen-zur-fort/. Wilson, J. (2020, May 10). Dynamo Dresden Positive Tests ’Not a Setback’ to Bundesliga Restart. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foo tball/2020/05/10/dynamo-dresden-positive-tests-not-setback-bundesliga- restart/. Wozniak, K. (2020, April 24). Keine Drittliga-Lizenz für den SC Verl. Revier- sport. https://www.reviersport.de/artikel/keine-drittliga-lizenz-fuer-den-sc- verl/.
Index A C Academy, football, 251 Civil society, 27, 36, 46, 47, 49, 56, Administration, 10, 50, 98, 99, 101, 60, 155, 157, 168, 261, 263, 103–108, 110, 159, 180, 183, 272, 285 185, 191, 199, 200, 204, 210, Coalition government, 163 211, 231, 262, 263, 280, 292 Collective identity, 13, 18, 53–55, Against Modern Football (AMF) 131, 220, 241, 242, 278, 280 (movement), 6, 60, 125, 226, Commercialisation, 4, 9, 98, 117, 242, 268, 269, 272, 280, 286 122, 124, 134, 146, 220, 224, All-Party Parliamentary Football 269, 270, 285 Group (APPFG), 125, 154–156 Commodification, 4, 9, 58, 117, 124, Annual general meeting (AGM), 35, 269 188, 189, 191, 205–207, 211, Communitisation, 17, 62–64, 67, 223, 225, 265 120, 123, 170, 240, 256, 272, 278, 280, 282 Community engagement, 153, 160 Community programme (CP), 17, 18, 153, 165, 168, 169, 171, 181, 207, 221, 250, 252–258, 263, B 267, 274 Big society, 155, 163 Company club, 35, 37, 38, 41, 56, Branding, 15, 191, 221, 264, 265 106, 110, 164, 165, 169, 180, © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive 299 license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0
300 INDEX 182, 184, 201, 220, 264, 266, I 273, 285 Institutionalism, 13 CSR, 165, 166, 168, 257, 262 (Institutional) mimicry/mimicking, Cultural capital, 49–51, 58, 59, 86, 12, 15, 64, 128, 208, 278 106, 159, 185 Intervention, 99, 124, 155, 162, 266, Cultural resistance, 266, 272, 273, 280 280, 281 Isomorphism coercive, 12, 208, 262 mimetic, 12, 262, 264, 271, 273 D normative, 12, 208, 262, 273 Democracy, 189, 215, 224, 226, 266, 285 L Do-It-Yourself (DIY), 233, 245 Labour Party, 37, 156 Ladies football club (LFC), 168, 205, 258 E Legitimisation, 11, 12, 17, 170, 193, English football league (EFL), 27, 32, 220, 221, 263, 273, 278, 281 33, 38, 41, 83, 94, 99, 163, 209, Liberal market, 128, 285 221, 250, 263 Established traditional football clubs (ETFC), 9, 179, 200, 253, 262, M 267, 273 Members, 35–38, 40–42, 45–47, 50, Etzioni, A., 2 52, 55–57, 61, 65, 66, 81, 82, 91, 98, 107, 118, 119, 127, 128, 169, 180, 185–191, 200, F 204, 205, 207, 212, 215, 220, Foreign Investment, 86, 87, 89, 90 223–226, 231, 232, 234, 236, 239, 241, 244, 249, 256, 266, 268, 270, 272, 274, 279, 283 G Globalisation, 6, 13, 14, 19, 36, 46, N 54, 222 National League (NL), 27, 29, 33, Glocalisation, 11, 13, 18, 19, 222, 60, 94, 163, 291, 293, 294 278, 279 Neo-liberalism, 60 Governance, 6–8, 27, 202, 275, 284, Network(s), 60, 251, 263, 282 286 Ground moves, 137–138 O Ownership, 7, 8, 27, 38, 40, 41, H 85–88, 90, 106, 109, 118, Human capital, 14, 211, 212 127, 141–143, 155–157, 180, Hybrid organisations, 274, 283, 287 182, 188, 227, 231, 234, 241,
INDEX 301 266–268, 274, 279, 280, 283, Societisation, 17, 58, 62–64, 67, 120, 286 122, 170, 240, 256, 272, 273, 278, 280, 282 Society club, 35, 40, 47, 56, 164, P 165, 169, 187, 188, 236, 256, Player wages, 98, 220, 295 280 Political and protest football clubs Stakeholders, 56, 165, 170, 240, 272, (PPFC), 10, 18, 179, 180, 187, 278 200, 205, 212, 220, 226, 233, Supporter ownership, 6, 8, 155, 156, 236, 238, 240, 245, 253, 266, 169, 180, 183, 203–205, 215 267, 269, 270, 272, 273, 279, Supporter Trust (ST), 4, 40, 50, 125, 280, 284, 286, 287 183, 188, 268 Politicisation, 57–60, 125, 153, 161, 268, 272, 278 Premier League (PL), 6, 27–29, 33, T 36, 38, 41, 66, 82–86, 88, 89, Taylor Report, 66, 139, 158 91, 93, 94, 96, 97, 99, 103–105, Third sector, 46, 47, 274 109, 110, 125, 139, 140, 142, Third way, 18, 162 147, 160, 162, 163, 168, 170, TV rights (revenues), 82, 91, 93, 95, 187, 206, 215, 221, 235, 241, 98, 105, 109, 110, 291 273, 287, 289, 291, 295 Protest, 86, 157, 179, 188, 242, 269, 270, 272 V Punk football, 233 Values, 2, 8, 12, 48, 52, 56, 61, 63, 81, 88, 89, 91–93, 95, 120, 122–125, 128, 133, 135, 136, R 142, 145, 154, 155, 212, 225, Resilience, 11, 168, 280, 289 239, 240, 273, 278, 280, 281, 286 Volunteers, 42, 47, 81, 213, 249, 264 S Sense of place, 132, 134, 230, 262, 268 Y Separation of structures, 180 Young talent, 169, 204, 207, 208, Social capital, 49 211, 214, 215
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