No middle ground in Portugal

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/05/2020 (2281 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There is a saying in Portuguese that it’s either eight or 80 “oito ou oitenta.” It means there’s no middle ground, it’s all or nothing, one extreme or the other. As colloquialisms go, this one is useful when considering the restart of club football in Europe.

Since the middle of March — 10 weeks ago — there has been no elite-level football, or any sport, played on the continent. (Sorry, Belarus.) The leagues rightfully shut down with the rest of the economy, with just about everything else, and excepting the fringes of right-wing conspiracy and science denial they were acknowledged for having made the best decision available to them, the only decision, albeit an extreme decision.

Now comes the other extreme.

Starting Thursday with the resumption of Portugal’s Liga NOS, the divisions still on coronavirus pause will push play at almost the same time. Germany’s Bundesliga, alone in the spotlight the last two weeks, will be joined in succession by the Portuguese, the Greeks, the Spanish, the Turkish, the English, the Italians and the Russians.

If the last two-and-a-half months were eight, the next two-and-a-half will be 80. And, ironically, although fans will not be permitted to attend matches or gather outside stadiums (Russia is the outlier here, allowing stadiums to admit 10 per cent of their capacities) much of the global audience will be a captive one.

Yes, it is spring and soon to be summer in the Northern Hemisphere, but people won’t be enjoying the outdoors as they typically would this time of year. It’s simply not possible, or safe. What they will have is football, a lot of it, every day, on television and streaming services. There are worse ways to pass the time.

Of course, this bit of entertainment — like that of the NHL, NBA and MLB when they return — is being provided by athletes, coaching staffs, broadcasters and support personnel who are taking on some risk to put on the show. If players were ever thought of as anything other than figures of public amusement, that notion has now been put to bed.

And there is something troubling in that.

A few players, mostly attached to Premier League clubs, have vowed to stay at home as long as their workplaces pose a health threat to themselves and their families. There is nothing wrong with that, although, it’s worth pointing out, those workplaces are among the safest in the world. Countless workers have been taking on considerably more risk for far less reward over the course of the pandemic. Those who have stayed at home by choice have only exercised the prerogative of the privileged. There is something troubling in that, too.

That said, the resumption of football is, by and large, a good thing. But it in no way is it a sure thing.

The experience of the Bundesliga, for example, is far different than that of the Premier League or Serie A. Where Germany is at least confronting COVID-19 with competence and united resolve, England is setting a benchmark for ineptitude.

There’s a reason why a positive coronavirus test will affect only the infected Premier League player and not his club nor the one he last faced. If entire squads were compelled to isolate, the season would never finish. Four more players tested positive on Thursday. The health service, thanks to Tory austerity, is woefully underfunded, and the government’s initial plan to achieve herd immunity left it playing catch-up from the start.

In Italy, meanwhile, the move to restart Serie A was hardly unanimous. The pandemic has been regionally contained, but more positive tests are an inevitability rather than a possibility on the peninsula.

In other words, many leagues will be functioning on a week-to-week basis. That’s a good thing. No one wants to be unnecessarily reckless — except, it would seem, the English and the Russians. In no way is it sensible to have fans at stadiums in Moscow, even at 10 per cent.

Fans should also be aware that football is not coming back because of them. Empty, echoing grounds are the symbols of this reality. And the platform is the message.

If sponsorships didn’t hang in the balance, teams wouldn’t be returning.

If leagues didn’t have television contracts to fulfill, the wall-to-wall broadcasting of the coming months just wouldn’t happen.

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No one should deceive themselves, but neither should they deprive themselves. That’s the tension inherent in all this.

Pandemic football is hazardous, but summer football is fun. The shutdown was necessary, but the resumption is a relief. The world is sick, but the world lives on.

Oito ou oitenta, eight or 80. No football or all the football. This extreme is better than the other.

jerradpeters@gmail.com

Twitter @JerradPeters