Football returns to play by uncertain rules

Troy Deeney

TROY Deeney asks a very reasonable question: why is he not allowed to get a haircut but he is allowed to go back to training and in a few weeks play full contact football?

With nobody able to provide a satisfactory answer to that question, and with a young child at home who has some health issues, Deeney opted not to join his teammates in returning to training last week.

His question gets to the heart of the current confusion – and I would say absurdity – that we find ourselves in at the moment.

The real question is not about whether it’s too risky to play football now, the Germans and others are already demonstrating that it is safe, but why it’s still not deemed safe enough to visit the barbers?

The reason that Deeney hasn’t received a convincing answer to that is because there doesn’t appear to be one. Arbitrary rules are being made and revised on an almost daily basis. Is going to the barbers more dangerous than using public transport for example? It’s difficult to imagine how.

Premier League footballers don’t often need to use public transport but it’s been comforting to see that, like of the rest of us, their hair is proving difficult in these strange times. Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang seems to be suffering more than most.

While Deeney waits at home for answers to his questions, virtually the entire rest of the league went back to work in preparation for the planned return to action next month. The overwhelming emotion of the players seemed to be joy and relief at getting back to what they love to do.

Another successful round of fixtures in the German Bundesliga will have given further confidence to all that football’s return is not unduly hasty. But as with the virus situation generally, views are incredibly polarised.

On Facebook, one of my friends referred to the intended return of the Premier League as a “decision based on financial greed”. I respectfully disagree.

Why is football treated differently from any other sector of the economy in this regard? I’d be interested to see the implied moral continuum for resuming economic activity that has the altruistic at one end and the greedy at the other.

No doubt the vice of greed is to be found in football but so too does it exist in many other parts of society.

Football alas, given the scale of its profile, tends to attract more scrutiny than most. The same is true of footballers.

I’ve been surprised by just how many fans seem to be opposed to the idea of football’s imminent return in England – at least judging by the admittedly volatile barometer of social media.

But the momentum behind resuming is growing to the point of becoming almost unstoppable. The Premier League will be back next month and I suspect that by then even Troy Deeney will have decided that the level of risk is tolerable – though I respect his right to decide for himself.

When the league does return it will be to a rather peculiar alternate reality: fans won’t be there, pitches will be disinfected, and goal celebrations with teammates will be discouraged. As a spectacle it will be far from spectacular. But at least it’s a start.

Some of these new rules seem astonishingly arbitrary (what extra risk is posed by communal goal celebrations?), just like the continued prohibition of barber shops opening for business.

Football’s restart in these circumstances does not signal a return to normal. But let’s hope that things are normal enough soon that we can get back to complaining about the arbitrariness and absurdity of VAR.

Craig Wilkie. Football Writer. Football Coach. Football Fan.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The Star