We like to think of soccer as being special, with teams that are “more than a club” and inspire you to never walk alone. But during the novel coronavirus pandemic, soccer is being exposed as the disgusting fraud it is, one that leaches off its fans with no shame.
The last few weeks have been tough for football fans around the globe. Soccer has ground to a halt as leagues quite rightly do all they can to prevent the spread of COVID-19, leaving viewers with no sports to watch and the athletes themselves cooped up inside like the rest of us.
As bad as it is for fans, it’s nothing compared to those battling coronavirus head on, whether as a medical professional or one who has contracted the disease.
And yet, while the world struggles to deal with an enemy the likes of which we haven’t seen in a century, football clubs are showing exactly where their priorities lie.
It’s not the soccer, the players nor even the fans.
It’s all about the money.
Almost as quickly as leagues began to suspend play, clubs tried to figure out how to squeeze money out of their players who could not take the field. The biggest teams in the world, the ones who regularly throw nine-figure transfer fees at unproven athletes, started asking their players and staff to take pay cuts, accept furloughs or simply lose their jobs.
A millionaire footballer missing a few paychecks isn’t the end of the world, but most club employees are not millionaires — they’re the stadium workers, grounds crew and facility janitors who rely on that income to survive.
Barcelona, supposedly més que un club, was one of the first to ask its employees to take drastic wage cuts, more worried about the bottom line than the wellbeing of those in its employ. Liverpool thought it was being noble when it promised to ensure all furloughed employees would still receive 100 percent of their pay, but a closer look revealed the European champions were relying on government money to pay 80 percent of those salaries.
You’ll never walk alone in the unemployment line.
Countless clubs are following similar trends around the world. Even in the U.S., Real Salt Lake (and by extension the NWSL’s Utah Royals) said it will furlough some staffers and reduce the salaries of others because it’s ineligible for assistance through the CARES Act for coronavirus relief.
The most egregious reaction to the pandemic has come, somewhat surprisingly, from Germany.
In a country where fans are more closely linked to their clubs than just about anywhere else in the world, one team is trying to utilize that relationship for financial gain.
Schalke, home of American Weston McKennie, is quite pathetically asking its season-ticket holders to provide money for the club.
Die Königsblauen, currently sixth in the Bundesliga if it ever starts up again, are pleading with their most ardent supporters to waive their right to a rebate for their tickets so the club can have some more pocket change.
Jeder einzelne #S04-Dauerkarteninhaber und Tageskartenkäufer kann seinen aktiven Beitrag leisten und Teil unserer Gemeinschaftsaktion #NurImWir werden
Was heißt das konkret?— FC Schalke 04 () (@s04) April 8, 2020
“There are many offers (from fans) to refuse a rebate for their season tickets or day tickets already purchased and we consider these financial gestures as something special,” Schalke said in a statement. “In their sum, each of these refusals is an immense contribution to stabilizing the club’s liquidity and securing its survival. The club is facing a potentially existence-threatening financial situation.”
Schalke is one of the biggest clubs in the league with the highest attendance of any in the world. And yet it’s asking its fans to forgo a refund that many will need to help pay for rent, utilities, groceries and toilet paper. In exchange, they’ll get a jersey, which is better than nothing, but you can only get so many wipes of your ass out of a soccer shirt when you run out of toilet paper.
People need money right now — cold, hard cash, not team apparel.
It shouldn’t be up to the fans to keep giant soccer teams afloat. Clubs should not be run in a way that missing a few matches puts them in financial crisis. Just as clubs shouldn’t ask their employees to bear the brunt of the economic crisis created by the pandemic, they sure as shit shouldn’t ask fans to sacrifice.
Are there fans who will be more than willing and able to support the club? Sure, and those who have the means are more than welcome to do so. But most soccer fans don’t have a huge amount of disposable income; most humans don’t have the savings to survive not being able to go to work for weeks or even months.
Crises bring out one’s true character, whether it’s a government leader or a football club. We’re seeing firsthand where the priorities of soccer teams lie during this COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s not pretty.
