There are crises. And then there are crises.
The Covid-19 pandemic has presented European football with a Rubik’s cube like no other to unravel.
Complex questions, unprecedented decisions and unenviable repercussions are facing the game’s administrators and clubs with livelihoods, integrity and survival all on the line.
It’s the beautiful game’s Darwinism moment – and nobody’s immune.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. European football is funded by billions of dollars from television rights deals, but clubs also understand that the health of their players and employees can’t be compromised.
“For lots of teams it is an existential question – a question of survival,” Lutz Pfannenstiel, who is sporting director at Bundesliga club Fortuna Düsseldorf, told CNN Sport.
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No ‘one size fits all’ solution
Barring the anomaly of Belarus, football across the continent has been on lockdown since mid-March.
As countries begin embarking on phased reopenings, leagues are having to delicately navigate how and if to end the current season.
Whilst there’s a strong desire by European governing body UEFA to see domestic competitions through to their completion, the menu of best worst-case restart options is largely unpalatable.
And for some the consequences proved too hard to swallow.
Last month, the Dutch Eredivisie declared its season effectively null and void.
Ajax was on course to lift its 35th title, though there’ll now be no champion crowned for the first time in the league’s 64-year history.
“Of course (we were) disappointed,” former goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar, who is now the club’s chief executive, told CNN Sport’s Patrick Snell.
“At the end of your career, you always look at how many league titles you won […] and so that’s why for the club, it’s maybe understandable that […] the players would have rather […] seen it differently.”
To add insult to injury, there’ll be no relegation from and no promotion to the top-flight – a decision which led Cambuur head coach Henk de Jong to call it “the biggest disgrace in the history of Dutch sports.”
De Jong’s side were 11 points clear at the top of the Eerste Divisie (Dutch second division) and primed for the big time.
That dream has been snatched from them, and a legal challenge against the ruling has followed suit with a final decision pending.
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Brewing discontent
The picture is equally fraught in France where the top-two divisions were ended through a weighted points-per-game system.
Whilst Paris Saint-Germain can now toast a third successive Ligue 1 title, discontent is brewing.
Lyon, who finished seventh and have subsequently missed out on European football for the first time since 1997, announced on Friday it is taking action against the French League’s (LFP) decision to end the season, by first going to the Administrative Court of Paris.
Meanwhile Amiens, who finished second from bottom, has launched a petition calling for the league (LFP) to review its decision to relegate the club – one which is “fraught with consequences that goes against fairness in sport.”
Across the Channel, the UK has recorded the most number of COVID-19 deaths in Europe, jeopardizing England’s Premier League hopes of resuming the season.
Proposals by the league to conclude the season at several neutral grounds have reportedly been met with a less than enthusiastic response.
Sports lawyer Daniel Geey explained that whilst each league is governed by its own constitutional and contractual relationships, all face a fine balance between pragmatism and satisfying its members in the fairest way possible.
He told CNN Sport: “It’s imperative to prepare and plan with the possibility that things might not go to plan […] You have this football ecosystem of lots of different stakeholders trying their best to mitigate against what is a completely unforeseen situation.
“The reasonableness and proportional aspects will play a part of the rationale […] Would a reasonable league administrator come to a decision which it believes resulted in the fairest, most proportionate and non-discriminatory outcome for all of its league participants.”
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